[mass55th]

I'm an old lady now, but when I was a senior in high school (1964-65), I used to go with my brother to watch the Rochester Americans play at the War Memorial. Gerry Cheevers was the goalie for them. I had a crush on him back then. He went on to play for the Bruins. They didn't wear helmets or visors when they played for the Amerks. One game I went to, Cheevers got hit in the face with the puck. Can't remember if it was his forehead or his chin. I noticed when he went to play for the Bruins, he'd adopted wearing a mask. Not sure if it was an NHL rule by that time. Back then, Don Cherry, Eddie LItzenberger, Bronco Horvath, Dick Gamble, Norm "Red" Armstrong, Terry Clancy, Duane Rupp, among others were all playing for Rochester.

Back in 1991, when I went to Canada to do some research into my mother's side of the family, I found out that Tim Horton was a cousin of mine. I had never heard of Tim Horton, let alone the restaurants with his name. They hadn't come to NY State yet. When I finally tracked down some cousins in Canada that I hadn't known existed, they were the ones who told me of our relationship to Tim Horton. Sure wish I knew about the Tim Horton connection back in 1965.

[_longranger81]

When Cheevers started, masks were not only not required, they were rare. He was the one who put stitches on the mask for every place he was hit on the mask, with his best guess of the number of stitches that would have been required if it had hit his face. It played a major role in the adoption of mandatory goalie masks.

[crusty old prospector]

That’s a great story. Living down in Texas, I had never heard of Tim Horton. But after a few trips to Alberta and the Upper Midwest, I became familiar. Same with Bob Evans.