Anaheim goalie Jonas Hiller’s trendsetting new mask

With fanfare and flourish, the latest artwork for the mask of Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller for this upcoming hockey season was unveiled on the website padstracker.com.

It’s just too bad that fans in Anaheim probably won’t get to see the imaginative efforts by the creative minds at Switzerland’s Airxess live and in person anytime soon (at least the way the current NHL labor talks are going).

Prediction: They’ll love the mask in Davos during those Swiss League games this season.

NHLers Joe Thornton and Rick Nash played for HC Davos during the last NHL lockout in 2004-05, and the young Hiller happened to be the goalie, still a few years away from his NHL debut.

Back to the new mask designs. Hiller wanted them to combine elements of the Orange County lifestyle (surfing, palm trees) and the Ducks along with aspects of his Olympic mask from 2010.

“Hiller wanted to represent the Honda Center and the California surfer’s lifestyle, and on the back, his Poseidon has returned! It wasn’t on his last mask, but now it is coming out from his No. 1 on the backplate in a very detailed way,” Airxess owner Alec Voggel told PadsTracker.com. “Of course, the black is flat for all of the fans who wanted to see Hiller wearing a flat black mask again!”

Here is a look at all angles of the mask, via Padstracker.

The early verdict came from Hiller on his own Facebook page: “picked up my new Mask for 2012/13 season yesterday. Looks pretty siiiiiiiiiick!!!!!! will upload some pics soon...”

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