Behind the masks: innovator and artist Greg Harrison has revolutionized the game for goalies while creating some truly unforgettable masks - designer of hockey goalie masks

Hockey Digest, April, 2003 by Chuck O'Donnell

GREG HARRISON IS THE TRAIL-blazer of the modern goalie mask. Thirty years ago, when goalies were wearing flat Fiberglas masks, he was the first to develop and create the safer modern-cage style.

Then the Brampton, Ontario, native took it a step further, becoming one of the first to turn the mask itself into an art form. Several others have come along and tried to copy what Harrison started, but most of them just can't get it right.

"I respect the simplicity of his art work," says fellow mask designer Todd Miska. "The one thing that Greg knows, that other designers don't, is that the design must look good on camera and good to the people in the arenas. Greg would call the other ones radical paintings. You can't see what the image is until the camera zooms right in on it and you're like, `Oh, that's what it is.'

"I'm looking at a poster of Greg's masks right now. There are 12 masks and they are all very simple. The graphics are simple and bold, and they get to the point. That's what I learned from him. You have to consider how the mask is going to look to everybody, just not someone standing close up."

Harrison's simple, yet strong designs have adorned the masks of Gary Simmons and Gilles Gratton in the 1970s, Don Beaupre, Mike Richter, and Kirk McLean in the 1980s, and Brian Hayward, Ed Belfour, and Olaf Kolzig in the 1990s.

Today, he's the mask-maker for a number of goalies, including Damian Rhodes, Felix Potvin, Corey Schwab, Fred Brathwaite, and Trevor Kidd. And Vancouver's Dan Cloutier apparently is about to put in an order.

"I've always been conscious of the image that the mask should have on a goaltender," Harrison says. "I never did what I call a drug-induced, side-of-a-van paint job that a lot of masks have nowadays. The paintings I do, I always consider how it's going to be viewed on television, how it would look in photos, and so on. So it's a distinctive design using air brush if I have to give some things depth; but being crisp and distinctive so you can tell what it is up close as well as from a distance."

So you have the blank canvas, if you will. Where do you start? How do you go from concept to finished product? It can happen several different ways, Harrison says, and usually it's not easy.

Harrison draws inspiration from all kinds of places. He collects military uniforms, pilot helmets, racing helmets, and antique clothing. He restores old televisions and jukeboxes. He studies history. Any one of these interests could spark an idea.

From there, he'll get together with one of the goalies he works with. Take Rhodes, for example. A few years ago, Rhodes was playing with Ottawa when he wanted a new mask. He was one of the goalies that trusted Harrison to work something up on his own. Harrison's love of history gave him the idea to theme the mask after the Isle of Rhodes, known as the home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Colossus of Rhodes, which was destroyed by an earthquake.

"There are a lot of ruins on [on the mask]," Harrison says. "I did some columns, sort of medieval design based on the Isle of Rhodes." The mask was one of Harrison's favorites, even though Rhodes was traded to Atlanta soon after the mask was completed and therefore never wore the final product.

Other goalies are more hands-on with what goes on their mask. "What happens a lot of the time, I will have an agenda, something I want to do," Harrison says. "If the goalie is open-minded, he'll say, `OK, go ahead.' Sometimes they'll say, `Well, can you do me a drawing?'

"I hate doing that. It's a creative thing most business people don't understand. You start with a drawing. If you like the drawing and the goalie likes the drawing, as you are [making the mask], because of the shape of the mask, because of where certain lines may hit a hole opening or where the cage is, you have to alter it And you may have to alter it for the better, but you've already given him a drawing of what you're going to do."

Often it comes down to trial and error. When Potvin played for the Vancouver Canucks, it took Harrison several revisions before he came up with a mask the goalie liked.

"He trusts me because I always do the same basic teeth design with the eyes over the cage, and the sides and the top change with the team and with the coloring,' Harrison says. "So I had done three different versions of a whale's tail that he wanted to do on the side before I came up with the one that was the cleanest. It was all based on West Coast Indian art."

Designing masks combines two of Harrison's loves. Not only did he love stopping pucks out on the frozen lake as a kid, he was equally adept--and interested--in painting and drawing.

"I used to get kidded in school because the combination of fine arts and sports usually don't go together," Harrison says. "Kids would tease me, 'How's ballet doing?' I never took ballet but it was grouped in the same idea."

Harrison had some scholarship offers to play college hockey in the United States. Dave Chambers, who went on to coach the Quebec Nordiques, scouted Harrison to go to Ohio State. Here was the only problem with the offers: Harrison would have to pay his way for the first year, and would only get a full ride if he made the team. So, he decided to stay in Toronto and take art classes.