Quote:
Originally Posted by tvp2003
If you look closely, he's actually wearing a clear itech (full) cage instead of a wire cage. Only time I've ever seen it.
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The reason he's wearing that is because prior to the Olympics, he and Burke had both been wearing the cage style masks that most goalies wear now (but were rare outside of North America yet). Canada had been playing really well in the pre-tournament games, and both Moog and Burke were really strong in goal.
About a week before the Olympics started, one of the other teams (I think it was Sweden, but that could be wrong) complained to the IIHF that the eye holes on their masks were too large and violated an obscure IIHF equipment rule that was generally never enforced that required the eye holes to be small enough that a stick blade couldn't accidentally go through the gap and injure the goalie's eye.
Because that style of mask was still relatively rare, there weren't any cages available that would pass the IIHF standard, and they didn't have enough time to get ones made. This forced them to wear the helmet and cage style masks that most European goalies were still wearing at the time. Burke went with the standard wire mesh cage, but Moog decided to go with the Itech. It didn't work well because it kept fogging up during the game, which is also likely why no other goalie ever did it.
It's hard to know how much it affected their games, but any little bit may have been enough to keep them off the podium.
