Behind the Mask

I too, have to agree with an earlier poster. Tretiak was very good but cannot be called the all time best. Come on now, I know Canadian hockey fans are the greatest in the world and can be too generous at times with the accolades to the undeserving but to say he was the best falls in this category. Yes I was impressed with him and often wished he'd get injured in his acrobatic moves but no, he was in too good a shape. I did watch as many games as I could of the 76 series but more often than not, he was just good...after all we won. I've seen him when he stunk too and got rattled during the olympics when he was playing second tier players. But to say better than Plante? Give your head a shake otherwise you lose all of your credibility as a guru. Plante took him aside and through an interpretor, gave Tretiak advice on how to adjust his game otherwise he'd be blown out off the series. Plante wanted to see a true test od hockey supremacy rather than a lopsided affair because of an unprepared goaltender. Plante played in the pre-mask days NHL hockey, had more stitches on his face than Dodds has liver pills and never once lost his composure nor fear of the game. Yes, Vladislav Tretiak was great but Jacques Plante was greater!!

hey Kelly,i am 68 years old,and love the game of hockey,i was a goalie in the late 50,s playing intermediate A ,like you i played road hockey played my first game at 15 in a 6 team league,five of the teams were made up of men but one team was alocal high school team of boys man could they skate playing them kept you on your toes, one thing i learned was keep the stick on the ice,and your eyes on the puck,in the game today i see some goalies getting clunked on the mask,and this butterfly stinks,i am a beliver that if you stand up a lot of shots will hit you,when doing the butterfly and going down gives the shooter the top of the net,in the 6 years i played nobody hite me in the head,and i never wore a mask because there was none then. I never seen Treiak play but his back up played with the Cape Breton Oilers and i seen him play.

tku

alex fouger

I'm "blessed" with a bit of age. I watched Original Six hockey and I recall very well Jacques Plante, Gump Worsley, Glenn Hall Johnny Bower and... the greatest NHL goaltender of all time...

Terry Sawchuck

It is difficult to draw a line as to which one was better, but I'll glady place Sawchuck and Tretiak on a shelf together, well above anyone else.

I will say this:

imagine how great those Mtl. teams of the 1970s would have been with tretiak in goal instead of the over-rated ken dryden?

I recall reading a story as to why the scouts who went to the USSR to have a look came back and said "weak goaltending".
The story goes that Tretiak had attended his sister's wedding the evening before and had drank copious amounts of vodka. The scouts had seen him play the next day

Great blog Kelly. Always kind words for players and coming from a great one himself. I was just born when that series was played but have seen tapes. You couldn't be more right about the talent Tretiak had. I think they could say the same about you, especially in the L.A. King days. You burned my Oilers many times.

What stikes me about #20 is whenever we got to see him play, it was against our best. Be it 1972, or the following Canada Cups. New Years Eve in Montreal, the Habs were the best the NHL at that time and he did not give an inch in the Forum that night. If I had a game to win in any era, and my pick of goalies, Tretiak gets the call.

We lived in Moscow for 9 years where our son played minor hockey, and had the honour of counting Mr. Tretiak amongst our friends. He is a tireless fundraiser for orphanages and hospitals in Saratov, the region he represents in the State Duma. He would attend any fundraiser being held to help Russian minor hockey teams compete in North American tournaments. He is fully committed to public service in his country and is revered by young athletes in Russia as a model citizen, family man and athlete.

For consistent excellence, I don't think Tretiak has an equal. My favourites as a youngster were Dryden, Plante, Parent, but I always had a grudging respect for Tretiak "as truly the best." As a Canadian, I may wish a Canadian to hold that title, but I can be honest enough to admit otherwise. Currently in the NHL, I see Luongo, Huet, Brodeur as the best. But Tretiak was of a special breed - it's great to learn about the exceptional person as well.

Can we include Gump as well?

I'm not old enough to have seen the 72 series live, but I have watched all the games on DVD. I don't know why you all think he was so great in that series. He was in games 1, 3, and 4. The rest of the time he was soft. The New Year's game vs. MTL was unbelievable, and Trekiak deserves kudos for that game. But I've seen another 15 or 20 games on DVD of him vs. Canada and other teams, and I really do think he's over rated in a historical perspective.

I totally emulated Tretiak's style when I was a kid playing hockey. He was famous for the butterfly style and doing a move during warm-up that you could best describe as a Russian dance...knee up, knee down! I loved doing that, and it looked so cool.

He was the greatest.

Tretiak was a great goaltender obviously. Without him the Soviet Union and Red Army teams would not have done nearly as well as they did, assuming that there was no one else as good as him waiting for the chance. The New Year's eve game in 1975 stands out most in my mind. The Canadiens were all over them big time and they could'nt put a marble past him in the last half of the game. Best single performance by a goalie ever in my opinion. Totally won the game by himself. I'll never forget it. To hold off a team like the habs of the seventies who just kept on coming at him is just about impossible, but he did it. The Canadiens played one of the best games of their lives that night, anyone who was there or watched on TV knows this. Any NHL goalie would have been scored on at least for 7 or 8 goals that night. I know there were some great goaltenders back then, but when the Habs were really on like that night, even Cheevers, Espo or Parent would have been scored on 6 or 7 times. It was amazing. Greatest of all time ? It is really hard to judge as there were may great ones. Certainly in top 3. Dryden, Tretiak and I have hard time making my third official, perhaps Roy or Brodeur.

tretiak without arguement, should be in our nhl hall, if he isn't already. the first series,without question is the best tournament ever played in any sport.that
russian goalie stymied our shooters throughout that epic series. thanks for the story ,i had wondered what became of the man
ps. a shame he didn't come and play in our arenas fulltime like 4or 5 of his former teammates

Phil Esposito, in his memoir, says he doesn't think Tretiak was very good, and that there is no way that Tretiak should be in the Hall of Fame. I'm too young to have my own opinion.

As a life-long hockey player and fan but also someone who never saw Tretiak when he was playing. I was born eleven years after the summit series. I still find it interesting to read about the man and get a sense of how good he was. He trully stands out in the popular history of hockey.

Oh, yes, I remember Tretiak well around 1972. After we sent some scouts to Russia (Hello, there, John McLennan!!) to see what they had, a consensus scouting report stated that the Russians "were weak in goal"!!
Nottttttttttttttttttttttttt!!

As someone who witnessed first hand game 1 of the Canada USSR Summit Series as well as the other games, I can attest to Tretiak's brilliance in that series. Having gone back to playing goaltender a few years ago, well past my 40th birthday, the courage of the goalies of the 60's and 70's totally amazes me. I can only wonder how great all those goalies would have been had they had the benefit of the light, almost bullet proof armour that I wear. Jeff

I've always wondered how different things may have been, if Tretiak had been allowed to play for the Habs. We missed out, as hockey fans, not having the pleasure, of watching
possibly the greatest goalie of all time.
Like the rest of Canada, I celebrated when Paul Henderson scored to win the 72 series,
but I always felt bad for Tretiak.
As a kid, playing street hockey, our goalies always argued about who was going to be Tretiak. One of them eventually became a
Jacque Plante fan, so we had Plante at one end, and Tretiak at the other.
Eddie "the Eagle" Belfore ended up being the lucky one. He thought so highly of his
goalie coach, he wore #20.

Mr. Tretiak set the standard by which today's NHL goalies operate today. He was without a doubt hockey's greatest goalie.

I was a teenager when the historic Summit Series was played and I think I died a thousand deaths when Team Canada got thumped during the North American swing. I remeber going around in a feverish daze; could this be really happening? Aren't we the best in the world? How can WE be losing? Well one excellent reason for our hockey woes was # 20 in the Russian goal. Until he came along my favourites were Dryden, Cheevers and Parent. In that order. I'll never forget his brilliant play in that series, only eclipsed by his superhuman play in that memorable New Year's eve game in Montreal a few short years later. In that game - arguably the best hockey game ever played - Tretiak was beyond brilliant. Unbelievable. Unflappable. Montreal fans were treated to a goaltending clinic of the first order. I can remember that people in Montreal were agitating to trade Dryden to Russia for Tretiak, but I can't be certain of this ever going beyond idle jock talk. I read his book when it was released in Canada. I was pleased to see him pay tribute to Ken Dryden when Montreal retired # 29. He is a gentleman, a superior athlete and a great competitor. If I could say one thing to him it would be to say thank you for those incredible, historic - too often humbling - moments on the ice. To us young Canucks those games were as important as the Moon landings were to the Americans.

I remember Tretiak diving forward to catch a slapshot in front of his face as he was in midair. Amazing reflexes and playing style.

I, too, greatly admire Vladislav Tretiak. There is nothing today to the incredible intensity of the Russia-Canada rivalry in the 1970s. It was out of this world (and I grew up around the 1980's Battles of Alberta, which were as close as it can get). The Big Red Machine was fearsome, and at its heart was the great Tretiak.

I will date myself with my comment. Kelly, I enjoy your "Behind the Mask" very much and I enjoyed your commentary on Tretiak.

For me, the two greatest and best goaltenders ever in hockey, were "Johnny Bower" and "Vladislav Tretiak".