ONE STEP BACK

AS THE CANADIENS GATHERED for training camp in the fall of 1960, there was every expectation that this team would encounter little resistance on their way to a sixth consecutive Stanley Cup. Increasingly, many columnists, fans, and even executives urged NHL president Clarence Campbell to take measures to help bring an end to the Canadiens’ run of success, claiming that their supremacy resulted in a lack of competitiveness and was bringing more harm to the game than good.

Campbell’s intervention turned out to be unnecessary, as the passage of time began to undermine the Canadiens’ dominance.

There was one major topic of discussion as training camp got under way: the career status of one Maurice “Rocket” Richard. On the morning of September 15, Richard scrimmaged with the team. The opposing goaltender was Plante. That morning, he put four pucks past a stunned Plante and added three assists. It was vintage Rocket. He then made his way up to Frank Selke’s office and promptly retired. A press conference was held that very afternoon at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

“The fact is I didn’t really give any serious consideration to retiring until my last season in the league,” the Rocket remembered later. “That’s when my weight started to bother me and I knew I was slowing down. When I arrived at the 1960 training camp I surprised myself. I played very well and was scoring goals, but also I was feeling it. I was obviously forcing myself and I seemed to be trying too hard. Back in the bench I’d get dizzy spells. And I started to fear getting hurt. Right in the middle of training camp I made up my mind that I had had it. The dizziness, the pushing, and the fact that it was so hard to lose weight convinced me that I’d be better off retiring.”¹

“If the Rocket was too old and didn’t have ‘it’ anymore, what did that make me, huh?” said Plante, the victim of the Rocket’s final four goals.²

In a closed vote, the Rocket’s former teammates overwhelmingly voted Doug Harvey the Canadiens’ next captain.

On the day of his retirement, the Rocket held or co-held 18 NHL regular-season records and 14 Stanley Cup playoff scoring records. But it would be his immense presence that the Canadiens would miss more than anything.

The Rocket’s retirement was the only major departure from the team, and many still predicted a sixth straight Stanley Cup.

The team’s first game of the season indicated that they were picking up right where they had left off the year before. The Boomer opened the scoring 66 seconds in, Henri Richard added two goals, and Jacques Plante didn’t allow one to pass the goal line in a 5–0 whitewashing of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

However, unknown to his teammates or coach, Plante had begun feeling the effects of an earlier knee injury. He was unable to pinpoint when the pain began, only that it was there in spades. He hoped it would go away like many pains often do, but it didn’t. That was when he noticed that he’d been subconsciously changing his way of play in an effort to relieve the pain. He was starting to make the first move against the opposing shooter, with often disastrous results.

As the Canadiens and Plante slumped in the early going, winning only six of their first 12 games, whispers again started that the mask was the problem. It was Toe Blake, the mask’s biggest critic a year before, who now came to Plante’s defence.

“I’m not gonna tell him to take off his mask for this reason: if he should ever get hurt, I’d be the guy they’d be blaming for the rest of my life,” Blake told the media. “Plante knows how I feel about it. If he wants to take it off, it’s up to him. I think he could play better without it, but I won’t insist that he removes it.”³

Unfortunately, the Habs’ problems continued. The situation came to a head after the Canadiens narrowly avoided embarrassment at home on November 10. Plante allowed seven goals to beat him. Luckily, Jack McCartan, a rookie goalie for the Rangers, allowed nine goals. “In a word, Plante is on the hot seat,” wrote the Montreal Star, “and the Canadiens front office men are worried about the situation. The five times Vezina Trophy winner has allowed 56 goals in 16 games, and he shows no signs of improving.”⁴

Plante’s superiority in the playoffs a mere six months before now seemed like a lifetime ago. The seven goals allowed was a high in Plante’s career and led to an emergency meeting of the Montreal brass. The following day, Frank Selke revealed to Red Fisher that he was in support of temporarily shelving Plante in favour of his perennial backup, Charlie Hodge, but that it was Toe Blake who had fought for and won the day for Plante.⁵

“I don’t care what anybody says, Plante’s still the best goalie in the league,” a defiant Toe Blake announced to the Hockey News. “Sure, I admit he hasn’t been as sharp as he was during the first half of last year or in the playoffs last spring, but neither has anyone else on my team, or at least most of them.”⁶

Plante, keeping his sore knee a secret, responded to Blake’s public vote of confidence with back-to-back weekend victories over Detroit and New York, temporarily silencing his critics. The team’s next game was the following Saturday in Toronto, and the torrent of criticism was renewed in the face of a 6–3 loss at the Maple Leaf Gardens. The next night Plante battled Glenn Hall and the Black Hawks to a 1–1 draw at the Chicago Stadium before bowing to Terry Sawchuk and the Red Wings 3–1 four nights later in Detroit.

For the first time in memory the Canadiens were mired in a long-term slump. In hockey, when a team is struggling it is usually the goaltender who receives the majority of the blame, and in the case of Plante’s higher goals-against average, it was becoming harder to defend him. He was ranked fourth amongst all goalies at this early stage of the season, having given up 18 more goals than the league leader, Toronto’s Johnny Bower, and 15 more than his main rival, Chicago’s Glenn Hall.

Frustration was mounting in all corners. Plante finally came forward with his sore knee and had it X-rayed, but doctors were unable to find anything amiss. This led some in the Canadiens organization to question whether there was indeed anything physically wrong with the underachieving Plante.

The irony was that Plante, who had suffered numerous severe and painful injuries and had played on when men of lesser fortitude would have stayed on the sidelines, was now being widely doubted when he complained about the pain in his knee.

Plante faced a difficult decision. He knew something was wrong with his knee, despite the X-ray results. He could play through the pain, he could rest and hope that the pain would subside, or he could undergo major invasive surgery that would threaten his chances of playing that season. This was the era before mini scopes that would have allowed surgeons to investigate before operating – it was either major surgery or none at all.

In the face of constant pressure from Selke and the team’s vice-president, Ken Reardon, Blake finally gave in and started Charlie Hodge at the Forum against the visiting Chicago Black Hawks on November 26. Hodge was no stranger to the Montreal Canadiens. After all, he had been attending training camps for almost as long as the man who stood in the way of his professional advancement. While Plante had unprecedented success as the Montreal starter, Hodge had toiled in anonymity in various cities and leagues waiting for the phone to ring.

The call did come a few times through the years. Hodge played 14 games for the Canadiens in 1954–55, 12 games in 1957–58, two games in 1958–59, and a single game in 1959–60. Waiting for his chance, he had played for eight different teams in the past decade, in locales such as Rochester, Cincinnati, Seattle, Ottawa-Hull, and Plante’s hometown of Shawinigan.

Now the door of opportunity had slightly opened. Hodge was determined to burst through. That weekend he defeated Glenn Hall and the Black Hawks 4–2, before shuttling off to Boston the next night and shutting out the Bruins 3–0. With Hodge manning the nets, the Canadiens were finally able to shake out of their early-season slumber and won the first eight games of his tenure.

Even though Plante was relegated to a spectator’s role, he travelled with the Canadiens, practised diligently each day, and generously offered Hodge advice on how to deal with the circuit’s more dangerous shooters. He did all of this without public complaint, and suffered his fate with grace and silence, as Hodge kept winning. Blake debated reinserting Plante, but the Canadiens brass, wishing to stay with the winning hand, were understandably reluctant to make the switch.

“I can’t see any sense in making a change,” Toe Blake told the Toronto Star. “Maybe it would be different if Plante could tell me his injured knee is 100 per cent right. He can’t tell me that, so we’ll go with Hodge.”⁷

In an effort to relieve the ever-present pain in his knee, Plante began taking treatments from club physiotherapist Bill Head, who gave him a series of exercises designed to ease the throbbing in his leg. But the regimen brought little relief. “If you had seen Plante practice yesterday you wouldn’t bet too much money that he’ll be back for a long time,” said Toe Blake. “He made a face every time he went after a puck. He seemed to be in pain with every move.”⁸

As the calendar turned from 1960 to 1961, Hodge and the Canadiens continued to win at a torrid pace. After weeks of therapy, Plante was healthier, yet he continued to watch from the sidelines. This was out of character for him, and Canadiens beat writer Red Fisher sought to explain the mystery.

It is necessary to explore the character of the man to understand, in some small way, why he has been satisfied to sit on the sidelines all this time. He doesn’t have to prove his ability. His record is proof enough of his talent. However, in many ways, the goalie is a strange man. He’s a loner. He’s supremely confident in his own talent, and as the games go by, he must find it increasingly difficult to believe that the Canadiens can win without him.

Thus, he’s been leaving it to the Canadiens front office to take the initiative in his case. For a long time, he’s been waiting for people like coach Toe Blake to ask him to return to his regular job, and this, Blake has found impossible to do, Hodge has been too good.

Any other player would have approached his employers a long time ago and asked to be returned to his position. Plante, though, isn’t like any other player. His entire career has been one of nonconformity, and the system has worked for him. He has learned, though, that his employers can be just as stubborn as he is. It is their feeling that if Plante wants his job back, he has to ask for it – and then win it back.⁹

A few days into the new year, Jacques Plante finally swallowed his immense pride. Before one of the team’s practices he approached Toe Blake and pronounced himself ready to play. Both Blake and Plante were proud and stubborn men, and their complex relationship was based more on professional respect than on any feelings of personal closeness. It had now been five weeks since Hodge had assumed the goaltending duties, and during that time Blake and Plante had not had a single discussion with each other about Plante’s status.

“I talked it over with Plante and I told him the situation,” Blake informed the press. “I can’t take Hodge out of there, not with the way he’s been playing. It would be unfair. Plante agreed completely. He realized that Hodge has been playing winning hockey for us. He accepts the idea of sitting on the sidelines. I was pleased with the way Plante took it.”¹⁰

It had been a humbling season for Plante. He was the most accomplished goalie in the world, but for the first time in many years, there were now questions about his importance to the Canadiens. Jacques Plante was a driven man; he thrived when faced with a challenge and motivated himself in the face of doubt. Now he had to prove himself all over again. Such is the life of a goaltender: you’re only as good as your last game. Jacques Plante emerged from his sabbatical a re-energized and reinvigorated man, despite the continuing pain in his knee.

But Plante had been on the sidelines for so long that the Canadiens were concerned about his readiness for action. Frank Selke summoned an eager Plante to his office. It was a meeting Plante never forgot.

“Jacques, you just aren’t going to make it this way,” a blunt Selke began. “I have to think of the end of the season and the possibility of having to replace Hodge for any reason. Your prospects of being ready are doubtful. I want to send you down in the hope that you will recover your sharpness.”

“Down where?” asked Plante.

“To the Montreal Royals.”

Plante was honest enough to know that his game needed improvement. Yet going to the Royals felt like a big step back. But these thoughts were soon overwhelmed by a familiar sensation – the excitement of a challenge.

“When do you want me to report?”¹¹

It had been a little under nine years since Plante had suited up for the Montreal Royals. Now a team playing in the Eastern Professional Hockey League, they were anchored at the bottom of the standings. That the team was in last place mattered little to Plante. Unburdened of the pressure of chasing first place or trying to win a championship, he was free to focus on fine-tuning his own game.

There had not been a bigger story in hockey circles that season. Plante’s quick and sudden transformation from Vezina Trophy–winning goalie to minor leaguer attracted widespread attention.

“Today one cannot spend five minutes in Montreal without hearing, in French or English, an explanation for this bizarre turnabout,” wrote Jack Olsen in a Sports Illustrated profile on Plante entitled “Hero’s Humiliation in Montreal.”

Plante cooled off, they will tell you. Plante is hurt. Plante is being taught a lesson in humility. Plante asked to be sent down. Plante was thrown out kicking and screaming. Plante will be back next week. Plante will never be back.

Says a brooding, chastened Plante himself: “I have to face the fact, I may not play again for the Canadiens this year.” The French-language newspaper Le Dimanche-Matin congratulated the banished goaltender for having “beaucoup de guts” about the demotion.¹²

Plante’s “demotion” helped serve another purpose for Selke and the Canadiens organization. Attendance for the Royals’ home games held at the Montreal Forum was averaging a mere 2,000 spectators. Plante, in his first game back, backstopped the last-place Royals to an upset of the first place Hull-Ottawa Canadiens in front of 5,198 fans. It was the lowly Royals’ tenth game that season against the league-leading Hull team. Thanks to Plante they had their first win.

Playing in the rinks of the EPHL, Plante was a major gate attraction. Fans in these traditionally minor league cities now had an opportunity to glimpse a living, breathing hockey legend that many had seen only on television. In Kingston, 6,090 paid for the privilege to see Plante live. In Sault Ste. Marie, the second-biggest crowd of the year (3,357) came out to see him in helping the Royals to a 5–3 win.

According to the president of the EPHL, Plante upped crowds around the circuit by at least one-third.¹³

As his stay in the minors came close to the two-week mark, Plante began to openly wonder if returning to the Canadiens was a pipe dream and if his career might be coming to an end. “When you are sidelined like this, all kinds of thoughts go through the head,” he confided to Sports Illustrated. “What am I going to do? What could happen? Charlie Hodge and I have been good friends since 1954. How can they take him out the way he’s playing? And my knee is still bad. I have a lead boot at home. I strap it on and lift the leg for ten minutes every hour, all day long, hold it up there for 45 seconds. It hurts, but I want that job back. Maybe this year it is already too late…. I knew it had to happen sometime. Remember I am 32 years old. Charlie, he is just 26. I knew I would slip sometime, but, sonofagun, it is a little early, isn’t it?”¹⁴

As Plante despaired about his future, events with the Canadiens began to take an unexpected turn in his favour. Since Plante’s departure, the team with Hodge in net had emerged victorious only once in their last seven games, with Hodge surrendering 28 goals. The Canadiens’ slump culminated on the weekend of February 4 and 5, when they dropped a 4–1 home decision only to follow it up with one of their worst performances in recent history, in a 7–2 whitewash by the Detroit Red Wings. The two losses knocked the Canadiens from their first-place perch and plunged them downward in the standings.

Charlie Hodge had just completed his thirtieth consecutive start in the Canadiens net. He had acquitted himself well, better than most expected, winning 18 games, losing only eight, tying four, and pitching four shutouts. But his time was up. Frank Selke convened an emergency meeting on February 6. The meeting included Plante and Blake, as well as the team’s physiotherapist, Bill Head.

“We want to get back into first place,” Selke told them straight off. “I think we need Jacques’ experience and fighting spirit.” Blake, who had always been Plante’s biggest booster, remained skeptical as he stared at Jacques’ bandaged knee.

“Tell me honestly, Jacques, how do you feel?” Blake asked bluntly.

Without hesitation, Plante replied, “About seventy-five per cent of my top form.”

It was not the answer Blake wanted to hear and it did little to assuage his concerns. He took aside Bill Head, who soon came back and confronted Plante.

“They want to hear you say you’re 100 per cent,” Head told him. “As you know, in your job self-confidence means a lot.”

Plante was annoyed. “And I want them to say to me. ‘We know you are hurt, can play only seventy-five per cent, but we’ll go with that.’ What’s more,” he said, his voice rising in anger, “I feel that a seventy-five per cent Plante is as good as any goalkeeper in the National Hockey League.”

Head smiled. “That answer ought to please them.”¹⁵

In this trying season, Plante’s confidence understandably may have wavered, but it had never disappeared, and his answer was exactly what a skeptical Blake wanted and needed to hear. And just like that, Jacques Plante found himself back where he always wanted to be.

Three nights later, on February 9, Plante skated out and made his return to the Canadiens lineup in a game at Boston Garden against the Bruins. He was aided by a brace on his troubled knee that his teammate Ralph Backstrom had provided.

In his first game, a refreshed and renewed Plante turned aside 20 Boston shots as the Canadiens pummelled the Bruins and their backstop Bruce Gamble with 48 shots in an easy 5–1 Montreal win.

Six nights later, the Canadiens travelled to Toronto for a showdown with the first-place Maple Leafs. For Plante, it was an opportunity to show the hockey world that rumours of his decline were grossly exaggerated.

“Maple Leafs got a message loud and clear last night,” wrote the Toronto Star’s Red Burnett after a convincing 3–1 Canadiens win. “The message is that Jacques Plante is back in Vezina trophy form. And when Jacques is in that mood Montreal is next to unbeatable.”¹⁶

The Jacques Plante who emerged from his sabbatical was a far different goaler than the one who had struggled the previous fall. In the 21 games that he played at the start of the season, he allowed 69 goals for a 3.50 goals-against average. After his return for the season’s final 19 games, Plante allowed only 43 goals, for a 2.26 goals-against average.

The resurgence of Plante, along with Boom Boom Geoffrion’s record-tying 50-goal season, helped push the Canadiens to the brink of first place. A win in the season’s final game in Detroit would clinch first place. Jacques Plante, with a tumultuous year behind him, stepped confidently into the spotlight.

In a game in which the Canadiens outshot the Red Wings 39–20, only Jean Béliveau pierced the armour of Terry Sawchuk, who appeared to turn back the clock a decade by being the sole reason for such a close score. But on this night Plante was nothing less than perfect, and an empty-net goal with only one second on the clock by Claude Provost sealed the 2–0 victory and the Canadiens’ fifth straight regular-season league title.

Jacques Plante had endured a year of humiliation and had even considered leaving the game that had been his life. But he had emerged from a career crisis to again take his place as the pre-eminent goalie in the game.

With the baggage of the season now behind him, Plante and the Canadiens could bask in a first-place finish that was their hardest and most satisfying yet. All that was left for them to accomplish was an unprecedented sixth consecutive Stanley Cup championship.