The Skate Save, Captured on Card: Proof 1980s Goalies Occasionally Made Saves
Ever wonder why so many goalie rookie cards from the 1980s show goalies in warm-ups instead of actual game action?
You know the shots: leaning against the boards, staring into space, taking a slow lap without a mask.
There was a practical reason for it. Warm-ups gave NHL photographers a guaranteed opportunity to get a usable photograph of a goalie—especially a rookie or backup who might spend the entire game sitting on the bench.
Believe me, I understand.
As an NHL photographer for Icon Sports Wire, I shoot games in Edmonton. Both my client and I understand the importance of getting strong photographs of individual players. We call them ISOs—isolated action shots where a specific player is clearly the subject of the photograph.
Today, I might shoot around 800 frames during a game.
A photographer in the 1980s might have arrived at the rink with four rolls of film—roughly 100 to cover everything: goals, fights, star players, celebrations, bench reactions and, somehow, the backup goalie who may never leave the bench.
Once you look at those numbers, the dreaded warm-up rookie card becomes a lot easier to forgive.
It also makes the better in-game goalie rookie card photographs of the 1980s stand out.
#1 Bob Froese
Bob Froese’s rookie card received one of the decade’s better action photographs. It captures him making the dramatic—and now almost completely forgotten—skate save.
The dreaded skate save involved turning the skate and using the blade to direct the puck toward the corner, often while exposing an ankle that modern equipment has spent decades trying to protect.
My son, a U17 AAA goalie, simply cannot believe goalies actually did this.
Yeah, kid. We also walked to school uphill both ways.
#2 Allan Bester
Allan Bester’s rookie card gives us another beauty: a proper 1980s stand-up style kick save.
Bester boots a puck toward the corner like a pro. No butterfly. No dropping to the knees and letting oversized pads do the work. Just see puck, kick puck.
Beautiful shot.
#3 Gary Laskoski
Then there is Gary Laskoski’s rookie card.
His big moment?
Calling an icing.
Good job, photographer.
It may not be the most thrilling moment in hockey history, but at least the photographer captured Laskoski on the ice, fully dressed in action participating in an actual NHL game.
By the standards of 1980s rookie goalie cards, this is practically the Miracle on Ice.
The Curtis Comeau Special
Other goalies were photographed in the classic ready position.
This is what I call the Curtis Comeau Special.
Mike Liut, Brian Ford and Patrick Roy all received versions of it: goalie crouched in the crease, watching the play, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing is actually happening.
But the goalie is in focus, facing the camera and wearing all his equipment.
Mission accomplished.
Even today, when you get a clean ready-position ISO, you take the picture, silently congratulate yourself and move on to somebody who might actually touch the puck.
Grant Fuhr: Is This Action?
Grant Fuhr’s rookie card shows him making what can generously be described as a half-assed butterfly save.
He is not fully standing. He is not fully down. He appears to be reconsidering the entire save halfway through making it.
It may not have been the most technically impressive stop of his Hall of Fame career, but at least the photographer tried.
There is just one problem.
Fuhr’s photograph is almost certainly from warm-ups.
Crop it tightly enough and nobody needs to know.
Except photographers.
We know.
In an era when true action photographs were never guaranteed—and every press of the shutter used another precious frame—a clean photograph of a goalie making even a routine save must have felt like a small victory.
Since becoming an NHL photographer myself, I have gained a lot more appreciation for the photographers who shot hockey goalies in the 1980s.
They didn't have 15-frame-per-second bursts, autofocus systems that lock onto a player's eye, massive memory cards or an LCD screen to make sure they got the shot.
They had film, limited frames and one chance to get it right.
So the next time you see a 1980s goalie rookie card featuring some poor backup leaning against the boards during warm-ups, cut the photographer a little slack.
He probably had 12 frames left—and Wayne Gretzky was still on the ice
