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The Fine Art Of Stopping A Flying Puck

By Colin Dwyer, NPR, 05/30/19, 12:00PM PDT

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"If pucks start going in, it doesn't matter," he laughs. "You take your helmet off, you take a look and you go, 'I need another one. What am I doing wearing this one?' "

When the St. Louis Blues take the ice Monday, they may look a little green. This series against the Boston Bruins marks the first time the franchise has skated in a Stanley Cup Final since 1970. In other words, nearly two and a half decades before their rookie goaltender, Jordan Binnington, was even born.

At the same time, for all his youth, the team's 25-year-old netminder will be taking part in the same decades-old tradition as his veteran Bruin counterpart, Tuukka Rask. Both goalies will don masks drenched with vibrant color and baroque twists on their team icons. For Binnington, that means a hazy glimpse of St. Louis' Arch-adorned skyline; for Rask, that means a snarling golden bear. Both masks also represent something the uninitiated may not have expected to find on an ice surface: art, history — even high fashion, of a sort.