"If you want to say that an American invented the technology that allowed Plante to pioneer his innovation, I think you can make that case," said Addis, a member of the Society for International Hockey Research and a museum curator in Canada.

Late in the 1958-59 season, Hamilton trainer and track coach Gene Long fashioned a mask out of fiberglass for Hamilton goalie Don Spencer after he suffered too many facial injuries. Long, now 80 and living in Bluffton, S.C., said the idea for the custom-fit mask came from work he had done in track to prevent heel trauma.

"We started to use a custom-fit, fiberglass heel cup," Long said. "There is a tremendous amount of shock in converting horizontal to vertical momentum in the long jump. Theoretically, on a custom fit, the shock was distributed over the entire area."

Spencer's college season ended before he could use the mask in a game, but it was clear that the custom fit made the mask more desirable than other experimental versions.

"I never understood the reluctance to wear a mask," Spencer said. "It gave you confidence. If you took a puck to the mask, it hurt. But it didn't break bones. But you didn't cut, and you didn't lose teeth and your eyes were not in danger."

Other experimental masks limited a goalie's peripheral vision, but there was no loss of peripheral vision in Long's mask.

That spring Spencer saw an article in The New York Times in which Plante talked about his interest in wearing a mask, and Spencer sent him a letter. In that letter, Spencer mentioned that Long had used fiberglass to custom fit the design.

"I was thinking I might even get a couple of tickets to the Stanley Cup playoffs," Spencer said. "I never heard back from him."

In earlier interviews with Addis, Long recalled that he had given his fiberglass "recipe" to whomever had asked for it. It's unknown whether Plante mask maker Bill Birchmore at Montreal Cil Plastics was one of the people who was given Long's directions for molding fiberglass masks.

"We are willing to say that perhaps there were perhaps coincidental developments taking place," Addis said. "But in my research, I've never seen anything to suggest that Plante had a form-fitting mask before then."

Before Long's innovations, Addis said Plante was only known to experiment with Plexiglas, welder's style masks.

"That was in great circulation in those days," Addis said. "Goalies would use them in practice."

Spencer kept a copy of the letter he sent to Plante, and in it, he mentions Long's use of fiberglass. Addis says Long's original mask from the spring of 1959 and Plante's first mask — worn by the Montreal Canadiens goaltender in a Nov. 1, 1959, game after he was hit in the face by a shot from New York Rangers forward Andy Bathgate— are nearly identical.

"They look like twins," Long said.

Long worked with players from Clinton in the Eastern Hockey League, and some of them knew Canadiens players.

"Word had came back to me from Canada that Plante knew about this, but I cannot substantiate that," Long said.

Enlarge Associated Press file photo This is a 1960 photo of Jacques Plante, masked goalie for the Montreal Canadiens. Fifty years ago this Sunday, Plante became the first goalie to wear a mask.