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Storm Masks

The Masked Men

For as long as I have been interested in the sport of ice hockey, one item of equipment - the netminder’s mask - has fascinated me like no other.  Not because it is a genius of engineering and has increased the safety of those willing to spend the game between the pipes.  No, it’s the designs that netminders have painted onto their masks that fascinates me.  Each mask is a unique piece of art and although some netminders, like Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour in the NHL, have a common theme on their mask regardless of who they are playing for (a ‘wolf’ and eagles head respectively for CuJo and Belfour) most have some relevance to the team the netminder is playing for or include the team logo in some way.

This fascination with netminder’s masks lead to this site being called In The Crease - on the original version of the site all the links on each page were pictures of different masks and there was a general netminder theme with the site so the title of In The Crease was chosen.  So, it is only fitting that the new version of the site (the 3rd so far) includes some reference to this particular area of interest.

While I don’t envy the goalies position - who in their right mind would willingly stand in the way of a puck fired at them in excess of 100mph? - I can’t help but admire

Penguins Masks
General Masks

the masks they wear.  To them it is probably just another piece of equipment like their pads or their stick but the masks (and antics) of the netminder certainly brighten up the game of hockey for me.  Many a time have I squinted from Block 107 trying to make out what the design on the visiting team’s netminder’s mask is and what the relevance to the team is!!

So, in honour of my particular obsession with the netminders mask I have put together a few pages showing various masks - at the moment these are either

masks worn by Manchester Storm or Pittsburgh Penguins goalies at some point or are the masks worn by current or ex Storm netminders (Frank Pietrangelo and Jim Hrivnak) in their NHL days.  Click on one of the 3 images above to view the relevant page.   Also, check out the other images section of Slap-Shots which includes some Kiss (rock band) related mask designs!

Finally, for a huge collection of NHL related masks make sure you visit the Painted Warrior site!  Please note that I will continue to add images to the mask ‘galleries’ on an ongoing basis.

PD - 26/07/2000

VISIT THE LOCKER ROOM FOR MORE NETMINDER MASK IMAGES