Breakout Past: Goalie Masks

On Tuesday, new Penn State goalie Tim Carr tweeted a preliminary sketch of his mask artwork.

That mask suffers from some kind of undiagnosed sickness (that's a compliment, trust me), although Carr may end up replacing the outdated logo on his left side with an S, per Nick Seravalli's suggestion (even better: make it an S inside a keystone like one of my go-to lids).

Carr's design gave me an idea: use this week's Breakout Past to put together a gallery of some of the other great masks that have adorned Penn State tenders over the years.

Please accept my apologies for the quality of some of the photos - without having the university archives at my disposal, I had to resort to scanning pictures from old programs.

Going plain white might be seen as non-committal (or a financial consideration, if you know how much artwork costs), but it's a look that works at Penn State, as Tara Wheeler (left) or Matt Madrazo (right) can tell you.

Teddy Hume would like you to know that gray also appears on the PSU jersey.

Mark Scally (pictured here with the the ECHL's Texas Wildcatters) had a choice of headgear that contributed to his nickname - Dominik. He wore a blue version of the Hasek bucket at PSU.

The Dukes of Hazzard and this mask were both born in the 70s.

Chris Matteo's mask drew its inspiration from Gollum, of the Lord of the Rings series. The left side had the scene of Gollum looking though the bars in Moria, while the right side had a full-body representation. The words “My Precious” were written across the bottom front.

Scott Graham (left) and Paul Mammola (right) both borrowed from the look made famous by Joe Paterno's football team.

Katie Vaughan keeps people out of her crease with a scary dragon.

Early Icers goalies were clearly fans of the geometric law of vertical angles.

Nick Signet looks pretty calm considering the vicious-looking guy on his head.

Quite possibly the Penn State answer to the iconic Gerry Cheevers mask, however...

...Larry Lightbody, shown wearing his mask, thinks kids today are soft.