every mask looks at least decent now. Certainly a far cry from 5 years ago.

D'oh! Guess Mike beat me to the SI submission.

Budaj has altair from assassin's creed on his mask. thats sooo cool

I may be a vocal minority here, but is anyone else tired of the over-personalizations of the helmets now?
I think this is all Belfour and CuJo's fault.
Its one thing to take an element of your nickname and apply it to your team's nickname and colors to make a nice overall theme (Kolzig with the Mecha-zilla shooting lightning bolts), but its another thing entirely when they're like "hey, i like monster trucks, lets put that on my left ear" or "you know what would look great on my chin? a picture of my son" or other random non-sensical images, no matter how noble or honorable - it makes the whole thing look disjointed and plain ugly. And if they require too much explanation, something is lost, in my opinion (DP).
On the other hand, helmets like bryzgalov's that look like you can buy them from modell's in the licensed street hockey section are ugly too. i think the best helmet in hockey would be tellqvist if not for the random hawerchuk tribute (another rule of thumb: no portraits of actual hockey players past present or future)
oh well, i guess it all just keeps with the rbk ruining of hockey style theme.
/rant

Could not agree less with ya...I love that the goalies have masks that reflect their personality. The opposite is the NFL and their "uniform police". One of the more famous masks is missing...Johan Hedbergs "Moose". The detail work in DiPietro's mask is amazing...and to think this is all done with an airbrush on an uneven surface working around all of the hardware and air vents make these works of art all the more astounding.

This has NOTHING to do with Reebok. I hate the new unis as much as anyone, but this is all on the individual players.

I don't want to come off the wrong way - I'm all for the reflection of personality, but only to the extent that it can be made to fit within the grand scheme of the uniform.

For example, I take nothing away from the artwork on DP's helmet (which I agree is well done and will give credit to the artform), its just that the helmet does not belong with an Islanders jersey. Granted there is the loose connection that the Isles play in the nassau VETERANS MEMORIAL coliseum (the existence of which makes this one of my weaker examples as a result), but the fact remains that he brings in the color red and an american flag pattern all over the helmet to a uniform scheme that has none of the above. It looks like it was designed for someone on the Capitals and they just said "screw it, make some of it orange".

Other helmets that give rise to similar feelings:
Toskala - what does a skull have to do with maple leafs?
CuJo - same re: a dog? I get it, its your nickname. it was kinda cool when you were the only one doing it, but now not so much - especially since its the same helmet in a different color with every new team. lame.
Kiprusoff- more flying skulls (at least make them on fire and you may have some connection)
McElhinney - more random skulls - at least all are engulfed in flame, but cmon, you have a great team nickname/logo to work with and you choose to be one of 94 goalies with skulls
Nabokov - you can't all have skull nicknames (bonus ribcage and arm here)
Turco - Dallas Dragons has a ring to it. I'm just ill-informed on this one, though. Is there an explanation other than "i like dragons?"
Lehtonen - I am failing to see the connection between Kill Bill or the other chick and Thrashers. Is there a nickname buried in there or did Quentin Tarantino design it?
Carey Price - ?????

ok, ill stop there. but I guess my point is, I have no problem when there is a nickname-type logo featured on the helmet as long as it is worked in with the color scheme of the team and at least has some team elements to it. when there are just random images with no connection to the team or the goalie (other than "I like...") then these helmets start to resemble stickerbooks i used to make growing up with random unconnected images.

I'm all for fun and individuality, but there are clearly ways to fail at bringing this to a goalie helmet.

(And I didn't mean to imply RBK forcing these paintjobs, I'm just saying that both this trend and the new unis are ruining the look of hockey in my opinion).

/dissenting opinion

bferrara, i see your point, and to an extent i agree with you.

i like the nickname-related masks, they're individual without being random. who doesn't love the new Darth Gerber???

I like tributes as long as they're occasional (dipietro and legace are enough).

but i do agree with you on the random stuff, like lehtonen, price, labarbera, and anderson.

I think the problem is that, especially with some teams, goalies are wondering how many different ways can a logo be manipulated? and so we see the rise in nickname-masks, and i think eventually it will go full circle and we'll see logos again

there still are some real gems out there that are completely original AND team centered. Alex Auld's mask is amazing, i can't believe that hadn't been done yet. Valiquette's statue of liberty in a rangers jersey is brilliant! it's ones like that which are especially cool

did anyone else notice that Brian Boucher has a familiar wordmark on his mask?

http://nhllogos.blogspot.com/2007/11/rebranding-sharks.html

bferrara16: I agree with you... except, I think Cujo's mask is great. Yeah, there's a lot of masks with a head or something similar, but at least Cujo stays with his own style and doesn't change it all the way. He has had the maskstyle for ages.

Belfour's mask is one of my favourites too. Using your nickname is okay, but you shouldn't go too far.

Darth Gerber, Cam Ward's new one, and Cristobal Huet's are the ones that really stand out to me. Huet's especially. It takes the Indian theme to another level, the feathers really look sweet, and the geometrics around the face...

But yeah, I do agree that the personal things on the main mask are a little much. That stuff used to go on the back for everybody it seemed, and the main makes was a team related design. That's the way to go if you ask me.

Nicholas is right, Bouchers mast uses the Sharks rebrand wordmark....or is it the other way around?...

Roli's is awesome, but would have liked to have seen his new mask close up.

I did a quick GIS for a shark's wordmark and all I could find was the baseball style script.

Why is everyone the mask police? Let the goalies design their masks however they want. It's a piece of their identity. And by the way, DiPietro's father served in Vietnam. His mask has/had a helicopter on it that his father piloted.

As far as Turco goes, they're gargoyles, not dragons. "Gargoyles are guardians; I'm a guardian" was how he put it.
Theodore - he just put the Caps logo over the Avs' foot. You can still see the old one underneath. LAME. Get a new mask already!!
Also lame - I agree, no Moose in the gallery, and that picture of Pascal Leclaire clearly predates the Edge jerseys (be nice if he updated his mask at some point, though...). And no Josh Harding.
Not lame, but what's up with that horned...bull...creature-thing on Halak's mask? It was on his last one, too. Some sort of Slovakian mythology?

Theodore DOES have a new mask, it was sent over, it looks great - and it didn't fit him. It's being resized or a new mask is being painted for him now.

There's also no Brent Johnson, who has a pretty solid mask.

on Brian Boucher's mask
is that the wordmark that GFB used on his shark rebrand!?(oh i guess someone said that)
Kari Lehtonen: love the kill bill theme
Ty Conklin: looks like the octipus on his mask in that pic

on a side note, my friend was gonna get his mask painted like mavericks, from top gun

This is a hot topic by the sounds of people's comments. I think Chris should do a tournament to vote the best mask once a year, cause about 1/3 of the masks change every year, so it would be cool to see on his banner's Goalie Mask 2007-8 Roberto L. and then Goalie Mask 2008-9 _____.

To address some of the comments you guys wrote. The goalie mask is one of the only things in all of professional sports that is totally unique art work, why would anyone want to "Police" them. That would only cramp the creative freedom. Obvously your going to have crappy masks that are not well thought out or well done, but the creative freedom allows the great masks to come too. Roberto's is still the best in my books. Dunhum, floria panthers is by far the most boring and worst helmet of the lot of them. I agree that the helmets have only one theme work the best. Auld's is a close second in my books and Gerber is third. Darth Vader rocks!

I just started working with JP Custom goalie Masks (John) http://www.jpcustomgoaliemasks.com/, and we are going to start working on a re-designed mask shape, I'm not talking art work here, this week. Hopefully we can create something that is cutting edge and we can get at least one Pro goalie to wear our helmet design. The only active goalie that he has done work for in the NHL is Kevin Weeks. Hopefully we can get Chris involved in designing a pro mask, kinda like the one for Curtis Sanford, but that one ended in disappointment cause the final helmet picked, is no better than average! Its not nearly as cool as so many of the other designs that were entered.

sorry made some errors. I meant to say that SOME of the masks turn out crappy. Missed the word SOME there.

Also, I meant to say, hopefully Chris can run a tournament for a pro goalie mask design where people are free to offer there designs and hopefully there would be prize money for the winner, etc. I will keep you guys posted on this.

Funny how Conklin went with a Red Wing version of Fleury's mask

As for goalies that use the same mask in a different color when they change teams, like Cujo, Toskala, and Belfour, I love that. Those masks have become part of their identity and there is no reason for them to change it.

I like how Jiggy's has the arena on it, it gives a sense of "This is OUR house!"

i love almost all of those masks, all we need now is to convince ea to put more options for goalie masks in the next nhl game cause the ones in the game are awful, and only 2 choices per team? thats lame this gallery shows how many different styles could be possible

Carey Price's mask is not "random" as someone suggested. He's a big country music fan and has a couple of popular country artists on either side. I'm the furthest thing from a country fan so I couldn't tell you who they are. If Price wants to do that, why not? That's who he is.

I have no problem with goalie masks reflecting the personality of the guy wearing it more so than the team colors. It's what makes them unique. I don't want to see a bunch of genertic masks with just the team logo and colors like the lame options a video game gives you.

Did you have a problem with Josh Harding's (I think it was) Breast cancer mask, since that had nothing to do with the Wild?

What I do disagree with is Tampa Bay forcing their goalies to promote Saw 5. That's just wrong.

heron,
they used to have masks in the games. I recall NHL97 having a mask gallery in the menu, along with accurate masks for every goalie. since then, it was decided that goalie masks are art, and therefore are copywritten. so with the artists asking for money to use the images, the games decided to go generic. i do wish they had more generic options though...

Let the goalies do what they want. I don't see why you would like to be told what to wear on about the only totally unique piece of equipment you wear.

I love masks like Toskala's and Cujo's, how they stay the same on every team they're on, just different colours. Originality. And I love the full face masks, like Gerber's, Huet's (that's awesome!), Auld's, and Miller's.

I noticed that I tend to like white masks, because they not only work well with the white jersey, but they add the needed hint of white on a lot of home jerseys.