Happy Friday the 13th to hockey icon Jason Voorhees
Happy Friday the 13th to hockey’s greatest ambassadors, Jason Voorhees.
It’s Friday the 13th, and if you’re a horror fan, that can only mean one thing: Grabbing a bucket of popcorn and a hockey mask to sit back and watch Jason Voorhees.
Ah, Jason Voorhees; has anyone done more to promote this beautiful sport’s iconography without so much as stepping foot on an NHL rink?
Sidebar: Has Jason ever actually done, you know, what he does on an ice rink? I don’t believe so, but the fine folks over at Bar Down make a pretty compelling case that once upon a time, Crystal Lake’s finest used to be a goalie with a bit of a mean streak (read more about it here).
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Though he didn’t don his iconic hockey mask until Friday the 13th Part III, a fact that often gets lost on casual fans, Voorhees has spent unknowable hours split over dozens of movies, comic books, and even video games scaring captivated viewers the world over.
And while the NHL has never made him an official partner or paired up with Paramount and/or Warner Bros. Pictures for an on-ice crossover, their connection is obvious, ubiquitous, and one of the more entertaining in an industry designed to do exactly that.
From Jason hockey jerseys to painted masks, and even a ‘Jason goalie mask’ goalie mask worn by Jason Bacashihua of my hometown Hershey Bears back in 2009, the Friday the 13th franchise has captured the attention, admiration, and loyalty of hockey fans the world over more than almost any other film(s) not explicitly about the sport – certainly more so than the way underrated ‘hockey movie’ Swingers.
Surely, while a simple hockey mask changed the Friday the 13th film franchise trajectory forever, giving Jason his iconic look and establishing him as a horror icon in the same echelon as Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Pinhead, has anyone ever done more for the hockey mask? You can walk into any Spirit of Halloween, Walmart, or even Dollar Store and buy some variation of the iconic white face shield for a few dollars, and just like that, you have a costume.
Seriously, for $1-15, a lazy creative dresser could become Surfer Jason, Panda Jason, or even LeBron James Jason.
What was once a technical piece of sporting equipment has suddenly transformed into a pop culture statement, sort of like mesh shorts, high-top sneakers, and Under Armor.
Next. Way too early power rankings for the Central Division. dark
So on this Friday the 13th, the final Friday the 13th of 2020, let’s kick a stereo for one of hockey’s greatest brand ambassadors, Jason Vorhees. While your goalie days are (probably) behind you, your impact on pop culture, horror cultures, and last but not least, hockey culture will live on a whole lot longer than your victims.