Net Minding

Wayne Scanlan has an excellent article on the life and career of Terry Sawchuk. Here's an excerpt:

Today, Sawchuk might have benefited from intervention and rehabilitation. The talk- show circuit and tabloids would have welcomed his personal story. During the 1950s and '60s, tough hockey players were expected to suck it up and move on, and Sawchuk lived that mantra, playing without a mask, in equipment most kids today would be embarrassed to use for road hockey.

Sawchuk once estimated he suffered 400 stitches to his face before he started using a mask during the '60s. He was a worrier, and one of his great worries was someone taking his place. Not that there were backups on the bench during the '50s and early '60s, but good young goalies were in the system, salivating to grab one of only six NHL goaltending jobs. The pressures were enormous, the games low-scoring, tight.

Wayne Scanlan has today's must read article. Here's some more interesting articles from around the 'Net.

• Dave Stubbs has a great piece on Martin Brodeur including how as a 14 year Brodeur was at the Stanley Cup parade in 1986 cheering on his idol, Patrick Roy.
• Jim Kelley has an excellent suggestion as to who should be the final Olympic torch bearer in Vancouver 2010. All the best to Mr. Kelley, who I just learned is curtailing his career to battle pancreatic cancer.
  
• Stu Hackel at the New York Times takes a look at the new documentary about the 1960 US Olympic hockey team that won gold in Squaw Valley. It is called The Forgotten Miracle.
  
• It's tough to be a young referee. I see the verbal abuse referees take at a local youth and senior levels, and it's amazing that anyone aspires to be an on ice official
• Brett Hull and Brendan Shanahan recently reminisced about Mike Keenan, with Hull now saying he hated him as a coach, but he is a good guy. I'm glad Hull moved on, but I think there's a lot of fans in quite a few NHL cities who still hate Mike Keenan, and not for his bench tactics.