RIP of the day
Out of context: Reply #2242
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- _niko10
Ken Dryden
He was my first obsession, as a little immigrant kid in Canada who could barely speak the language I was fascinated by stories my cousins would tell me about his playing days, both as the backstop to the legendary Habs teams of the 70’s and of course team Canada during the epic Russia series in ‘72.
I also learned how to draw because of him, that’s all I would do, I’d fill my notebooks, my desk, any scrap paper I could find with drawings of him copied from old hockey cards that I’d carry around.
I found a copy of his children’s book version of “the game” in the school library and must have read it a hundred times, I studied it and desperately wanted to be just like him. He thought me how to make myself look bigger in net by taking a couple of steps up to cut down the angle. And with a baseball glove for a catcher and makeshift couch cushion foam for pads I became a street hockey goat on the cold Toronto roads
And that mask, for me, the greatest design of all time, nothing comes close to the simplicity and beauty of number Drydens mask, especially now in an era of ugly air-brushed nonsense.
