Jacques was far away from his family once again. But the atmosphere in St. Louis did not get him down like that of New York City or Baltimore. He wrote long daily letters, three or four pages each, to his wife Jacqueline; he had always enjoyed writing. He told her everything that happened to him during the day. He also amused himself by cooking – especially Italian food. Jacques kept his insatiable curiosity alive throughout his life, and his years away from hockey had brought him a greater maturity. Perhaps because there was less pressure on him, Jacques took life more calmly – a game at a time as far as his performance on the job went, and a year at a time as far as his long-term career plans were concerned.
In addition, the spirit that Blues owner Syd Solomon III wanted to instill in the team harmonized with Jacques’ own views. He soon became a friend of the Solomon family. It was understood that Jacques would never mind the nets for two games consecutively. The day after playing a game, more often than not, he was invited to go fishing with the team owner, to be able to fully relax. Solomon had also fixed up a clubhouse near the hotel where several of the players lived, a place where they could get together to talk, watch television, or play pool or ping-pong. Jacques was careful to keep himself in good condition. At thirty-nine years of age, an athlete has to watch for signs of deterioration, and for a man as conscientious as Jacques Plante was, exercises were a normal part of the daily routine.
Syd Solomon was a big-hearted man who thought of a thousand and one details to make his players happy – things that sports clubs rarely bother with. For example, on Jacques’ fortieth birthday, the arena organist broke into “Happy Birthday to You†as soon as the goaltender skated onto the ice for that evening’s game. Jacques was even more surprised when the fans began to sing, substituting “Jacques†for “You.†Deeply touched by this kind gesture, the new quadragenarian showed his appreciation by playing a terrific game which ended by Blues tied with Rangers 2–2.
Solomon genuinely liked his players, and particularly admired his goaltenders. Hall and Plante rewarded him well for his trust in them. Each in turn handed in sparkling performances. The two old warriors got along like a house on fire and they obtained incredible results.
That year, an astonishing number of goals were scored in the NHL. Besides Bobby Hull’s 58, several star forwards scored over 40 goals each, including Phil Esposito for the Bruins and Frank Mahovlich for the Red Wings, with 49 goals apiece. Even the veteran Gordie Howe, still powerful at forty-one years old, succeeded in scoring 44 times that season. The only club that didn’t have a superior pointgetter was St. Louis. However, behind a rather slow but extremely experienced defence line, Jacques and Glenn blocked everything that came at them. The tandem won the Vézina Trophy that year, allowing 40 fewer goals than their closest rivals, the Rangers goaltenders.
The Blues had become the shutout kings of the NHL. Hall had posted 8, with a goals-against average of 2.17 in 40 games, while Jacques, having played 37 games, had an incredibly low goals-against average of 1.96, with 5 shutouts!
Along with these fantastic results, Jacques played on the Western Conference All-Star team, coached by Scotty Bowman. Together, they upheld the spirit of St. Louis by leading the team to a 3–3 tie with the powerful Eastern Conference All-Stars.
In the playoffs, the Blues easily eliminated the Flyers, then the Kings, both times in only four games. However, in the final series, they were unable to mark even one victory over the Canadiens, who won their sixteenth Stanley Cup.
Jacques tended the net for the Blues in 10 playoff games, letting in only 14 goals. More significantly for his personal statistics, he chalked up his fourteenth shutout in a playoff series, beating the record set by Turk Broda, the former star goalie of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Jacques had been right: there had been new heights to reach. He definitely entered a special category when he won his seventh Vézina Trophy, an all-time record in hockey. But besides earning that prestigious and unique title, he had proved that he was flexible enough to adapt to the new playing style that now dominated North American pro hockey. Observation, analysis, and execution: these three words could have constituted Jacques Plante’s motto. The only word missing was perfectionism.
Of course, it was impossible to block every shot. Although the best teams in the NHL were still those of the Eastern Conference, the hockey played in the West was of a surprisingly high calibre. The following season, Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall were still at their posts in the Blues’ net. Between the two of them, they allowed only 179 goals during the season, 9 more than Tony Esposito of the Chicago Black Hawks, who won the Vézina that year. Jacques’ goals-against average was 2.19, with 5 shutouts added to his total.
In the season’s first match between the Blues and the Big Bad Bruins, Fred Stanfield let fly a powerful shot from the tip of his stick-blade. Phil Esposito slapped the deflected puck straight into Jacques’ mask. The goaltender collapsed, falling heavily onto the ice.
When he regained consciousness hours later at the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, he heard a nurse saying, “Even if you were wearing your mask, you still had a serious concussion.â€
The mask…the mask…the word spun around in Jacques’ head. His still-confused consciousness seized on the word, and with unexpected presence of mind, he retorted, “Maybe. But without the mask, you wouldn’t be talking to me now. I’d be at the morgue.â€
Jacques was indomitable. Even flat on his back and unable to move his limbs, he still had to defend his ideas. However, the injury meant that Jacques’ season was over – as well as his marvellous years with St. Louis.
For the third year running, the Blues were the Western Conference champions and went to the finals to lose the Stanley Cup – this time to the Boston Bruins, who had another kind of innovator in their ranks: the young Bobby Orr, the first defenceman to win the scoring championship. It was Orr’s year, for besides having scored 120 points, he won the Norris Trophy for best defenceman, the Hart Trophy for most valuable player, and the Conn Smythe Trophy for best player in the playoffs. While Jacques Plante had taught goalies that they could be effective out of the net, Bobby Orr had shown defencemen that if they skated fast enough, they could initiate plays that could completely change the pace of the game.
At the end of the 1969–1970 season, Jacques went home to Laval-des-Rapides. The old warhorse could hold his head high and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. But, as usual, Jacques’ duty to himself was not limited to simply excelling in his profession and resting on his laurels once the summer carne. He threw himself into a demanding routine of physical activity. Along with twenty minutes of calisthenics, he worked out on an exercise cycle for ten minutes, three times a day. He also played tennis. But that was not the extent of his activities. Since he had first worn his mask ten years before, Jacques had never stopped upgrading the prototype to improve both the visual and protective aspects. His factory in Magog, in southeastern Quebec, was producing between 8,000 and 9,000 masks a year. He constantly received requests for technical advice from Sweden and other European countries, and from all parts of North America. Earlier that year, to provide greater protection for young goaltenders, he had adapted his “invention,†integrating it with a hockey helmet. Soon after that, he handed over the running of production operations to his son, Michel.
In June of that year, at the annual draft session, Jacques was again taken by surprise: the Blues had sold him to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs, who had finished the previous season at the bottom of their division, wanted a good goaltending duo. They had decided on Bruce Gamble, a goalie of average talent, and Jacques Plante.
Several years afterwards, when a reporter asked Scotty Bowman what he considered the best transaction of his career, he replied, “The best deal I made was bringing Jacques Plante to St. Louis.â€
<
br /> “And the worst?â€
“It was when I let him go to Toronto.â€
Toronto was where Jacques had suffered his worst asthma attacks. Even though the Leafs’ management had rented him a spacious apartment in the hope that he would not suffer respiratory distress, Jacques soon realized that his asthma was still active. Not only did he suffer from attacks, but he felt a continual constriction in his throat. He had frequent checkups at the hospital and underwent allergy tests. It was a stressful situation for Jacques, but he refused to give in. In trying to conserve his energy, he lost weight, going down to only seventy-seven kilograms. He led a hermit’s existence, going to bed at 8:30 p.m. when the Leafs didn’t have an evening game, and rising at 7:00 a.m. He read a lot, spent hours answering his fan mail, and wrote to his wife every day.
As soon as the practice sessions began, coach John McLellan took advantage of Jacques’ vast knowledge of the game. He asked him to train the defence line which was made up of very young, inexperienced players. Jacques delighted in this challenge and buckled down to work with a will. During the games, he minded the net with great aplomb. He was pleased in February 1971, when the Leafs traded Bruce Gamble for a more talented goaltender, Bernie Parent.
Jacques had known Bernie for a long time. Years before, he had gone to see him play for Rosemont in the Montreal Metropolitan League. The young goal-tender, who started in the NHL with the Bruins, then played for the Flyers, had always cited Jacques Plante as his idol. In return, Jacques was convinced that Parent was destined to become one of the world’s great goalies. Once again, time proved Jacques right. That year in Toronto, he viewed Bernie Parent as his protégé and successor. Later, Parent would be recognized as Jacques’ spiritual heir.
Thanks to Jacques’ performance, the Leafs finished the season in a respectable fourth place. Jacques was chosen for the second All-Star team. Toronto was eliminated early on in the playoffs – it was the first year that Ken Dryden tended goal for the Canadiens, who won the Stanley Cup.
At forty-three years of age, Jacques knew that his playing days were numbered. Since his debut in professional hockey, the great goaltender had profoundly influenced the sport. In 1972, he collaborated with veteran sports journalist Andy O’Brien to write The Jacques Plante Story, in which he recaptured the decisive moments of his life and career. Naturally, he contributed his views on the evolution of hockey technique in general, and on the individual styles of some of the exceptional players he had known.
Jacques still loved to talk, and he generously gave young hockey hopefuls the benefit of his experience. That summer at home, for the sixth year in a row, he taught his art at the École moderne de hockey, one of many hockey schools for young people that were sprouting up all over North America. He lent his enthusiastic support to these schools and freely revealed his professional secrets to aspiring goaltenders. He summed them up in ten fundamental principles. For Jacques Plante, a good goalie should:
1. be a good skater;
2. be a good stick-handler;
3. eliminate dangerous rebounds by bending the legs;
4. constantly watch the puck;
5. help teammates in the home zone by talking to them;
6. never move back into the net when an opponent comes in to shoot (it is better to move forward, even a few inches) and move horizontally across the net if an opponent cuts over in front of it;
7. bend over for blind shots from the blue-line and not stretch up on the toes;
8. place the blade of the stick onto the ice when à n opponent shoots during a scrum in front of the net;
9. come out of the net to stop a long bouncing shot on the first bounce;
10. hit the puck into the corner instead of diving onto it during a goal-mouth scrum.
Jacques was much in demand as a lecturer and special guest at social and sports events, where he never hesitated to express his original ideas. He felt that minor league hockey focused too much on winning games, and that for players under the age of ten, hockey ought to be mainly recreational instead of competitive – an activity in which young people could learn their skills without having to endure the gruelling criticism that prevails in organized hockey.
Jacques’ reputation as an exceptional communicator spread; he was even solicited by groups outside the continent. In the spring of 1972, the Swedish Hockey Federation, on a suggestion by retired player Billy Harris, asked Jacques to give some lessons to its goaltenders. At first, he declined, having too many engagements at home, but the Swedes continued to press him. Finally, he offered them one summer weekend, and thus, at the end of July, he travelled to Lexsand, 250 kilometres from Stockholm, to give pointers on the profession of which, by his verve and experience, he was the uncontested world master.
His pupils in Lexsand included the eight best goalies in the country, as well as about twenty trainer/coaches of the high-calibre teams of the Swedish National League. The Plante method was a complete revelation to these neophytes who, before that, had followed the dull, pragmatic instructions given in their Czechoslovakian goaltending manuals. Jacques did not limit his approach to the usual basic puck-stopping techniques: he mainly wanted to teach them to think, and to learn about playing strategies. He also taught them the art of roving from the net, and how to predict what would happen in certain circumstances – in short, he taught them how to use their intelligence and imagination. That was the precious gift that only Jacques Plante, among all the hockey greats of the time, could have given them.
Jacques defined three basic goaltending styles: the butterfly, or V-position to protect the lower half of the net using the full breadth of the leg pads; the classic style of standing upright, covering the corners, and making decisions according to the principles of play; and, finally, the “Worsley†style of plunging to the right or left in anticipation of the shots.
Jacques had a wonderful sense of humour and adored teaching, since it required him to look at all the aspects of his profession to be able to pass on his knowledge effectively. In the same year, he wrote Goaltending, published by Collier-Macmillan of Canada (the French-language version, Devant le filet, was published by Éditions de l’Homme). In the foreword, Jacques made these pertinent remarks:
A goalie depends so much on his teammates’ playing that at times it gets on his nerves and he loses his temper. Goalkeepers are a breed apart because of the work they do and because no one else can understand what they go through before and during a game. After the game, they often have to explain what happened on many goals. Most of the time they accept the blame, because it is their job to stop the puck, but when they point out another player’s error, they are called poor losers trying to find excuses for their mistake.
To succeed, goalies have to have strong willpower, pride in their work, a lot of ability – more than any other player – good judgment, steel nerves, and a high degree of resistance to endure all the injuries they suffer during the course of a season….
If you look at me today, you’ll notice a lot of grey hair, which is often the sign of wisdom. Maybe that’s true in my case. Certainly, it took long enough for me to get where I am, and I don’t think I could have done any better than I did….
Remember that goalkeeping is an art. To master it, you have to continuously adjust your style to conserve energy, remain strong until the end of each game, and consequently play better. You have to read, observe, listen, question, and practise every chance you get.
All my life, I learned through my mistakes because no one could help me. You don’t have that problem. But you’ll discover that goalies aren’t made in a day. You have to grow up, mature, and suffer a multitude of setbacks and defeats before you can become a great goalie. And even then, the work doesn’t stop.
Humbly then, in the autumn of 1972, Jacques Plante offered the public the first goaltenders bible. No o
ne else could have done it.
The summer of 1972 was one of the worst periods ever for professional hockey. After grafting two new teams to its roster two years earlier – the Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres – the NHL added a further duo of rookie teams to the scoreboard: the Atlanta Flames and the New York Islanders. This additional expansion diluted the talent even further, and the situation was exacerbated by the formation of a whole new league, the World Hockey Association (WHA).
To become established in pro hockey and to attract fans, the WHA set up teams in twelve North American cities and immediately set out to siphon off the most promising talent from the NHL – which had monopolized professional hockey until then – by contracting the best young players, that is, those who were willing to take the risk of leaping into the unknown. Thus, from one day to the next, the face of the game was completely transformed. Bobby Hull, who had scored 604 goals in 13 seasons for Chicago, signed a million-dollar contract with the Winnipeg Jets of the WHA. all of a sudden, every player with the least bit of talent was offered a choice between the two leagues. Several well-known players went over to the WHA, including goaltenders Gerry Cheevers and Bernie Parent, defenceman Jean-Claude Tremblay, and forwards Dave Keon, Johnny McKenzie, and Frank Mahovlich. The following year, even the great Gordie Howe defected to the Houston Aeros, mainly because he wanted to play with his sons, Marty and Mark – a first-ever in the history of the sport. In one fell swoop, the geography, but especially the economics of hockey were turned upside-down. Things were not going well for the NHL, but there was still worse to come in April of the same year.
The League’s prestige was irrevocably tarnished by a highly publicized event that was promoted as “the series of the century†but should have been nicknamed “the red menace.†Star NHL players from Canada were grouped into a supposedly invincible team that would take on a elite team from the U.S.S.R.
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