Do You Want Fries With That?

If you recognize the item to the left, you're likely Canadian and at least 35 years-old. This isn't an article where I'm making fun of anyone's age, but the era in which these items were released makes you somewhat middle-aged by definition as back in 1996, McDonald's Canada, in partnership with the NHL and NHLPA, released a set of seven goalie mask nationally from players that were well-known along with four additional masks that were available only in select markets. It was a comment made by Jason prior to our last in-studio episode of The Hockey Show that got me thinking about these, and I came back to HBIC Headquarters and wrote a few notes about them. In looking at those notes today, let's explore this collectible that still seems to resonate with hockey fans today!

Before we get into the discussion, here's a quick throwback.
It's nice to see Jocelyn Thibault working on making saves with empty french-fry containers, but it's pretty clear that the commercial was to promote the purchase of the golden-coloured potatoes in order to get one of the promotional masks. As seen, there are four in the commercial, but it turned out that eleven was the total number one could acquire assuming one wanted to travel to the four markets where the masks were assigned regionally.

The seven masks made available across Canada were:

• Ed Belfour - Chicago Blackhawks
• Felix Potvin - Toronto Maple Leafs
• Bill Ranford - Boston Bruins
• Mike Richter - New York Rangers
• Patrick Roy - Colorado Avalanche
• Jocelyn Thibault - Montreal Canadiens
• John Vanbiesbrouck - Florida Panthers

If one walked into any McDonald's restaurant across Canada, these masks were available for purchase in 1996. It makes sense to have some of the best goalies in the game during that era available - Roy, Richter, and Belfour - while Potvin and Thibault appealed to the two largest Canadian markets, Bill Ranford had some appeal out west with his longevity in Edmonton, and John Vanbiesbrouck had his iconic cat's face mask that virtually everyone recognized. If McDonald's needed safe choices to help promote sales, these seven masks fit the bill for the majority of hockey fans.

McDonald's Canada went one step further, though, in offering four masks available only in certain markets that helped to drive sales in those markets. Along with the seven masks above, if one travelled to Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, or Vancouver, there were additional masks to be had. They included:

• Curtis Joseph - Edmonton Oilers
• Trevor Kidd - Calgary Flames
• Kirk McLean - Vancouver Canucks
• Damien Rhodes - Ottawa Senators

It's pretty easy to see why the other four Canadian franchises had masks made for their markets as I'm not sure there were a lot of Potvin or Thibault fans out west, and Ottawa's rivalry with Toronto would have made the Potvin mask a hard sell in the nation's capital. In short, eight masks were available in these regions, and a total of eleven masks were up for grabs across the country for those who wanted a "complete set" of McDonald's NHL Goalie Masks.

Here's where things take a turn, though, because McDonald's doesn't do anything promotional without knowing if the market will react. Clearly, making these masks and selling them would require a significant investment from McDonald's in the design, manufacturing, and promoting of these goalie masks, so they'd absolutely need to test in a smaller market where they could get feedback.

Without ruining the surprise for the six Canadian markets, McDonald's went to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where they could test the market's reaction to the goalie masks in 1995. In order to do that, they manufactured a reported run of 2000 sets of masks that were sold exclusively in Saskatoon to judge reactions to this new promotion. If they sold well, there's a good chance the rest of Canada would respond as the people of Saskatoon did to the promotional items. If they didn't, McDonald's was only out the cost of 2000 sets of masks as opposed to, say, two million sets they were set to release.

You might be wondering why they chose Saskatoon? Again, the six Canadian markets that received masks needed to be kept out of the loop for at least one season while McDonald's designed and manufactured the masks for those markets. Because the promotion was set to start in the fall of 1996, Saskatoon's proximity to the NHL markets wouldn't be seen as infringing on any of those markets, and Saskatoon's relatively smaller size as a city compared to NHL markets made it a better test site where demand wouldn't outpace supply. In 1995-96, McDonald's launched a promotional test set of masks in the Saskatchewan city!

Saskatoon received the following seven masks in their market:

• Ed Belfour - Chicago Blackhawks (not bilingual)
• Felix Potvin - Toronto Maple Leafs (not bilingual)
• Kirk McLean - Vancouver Canucks (not bilingual)
• Bill Ranford - Edmonton Oilers
• Wade Flaherty - San Jose Sharks
• Tim Cheveldae - Winnipeg Jets
• Guy Hebert - Anaheim Mighty Ducks

It should be noted that none of the market-test masks came out with bilingual NHL/NHLPA logos as McDonald's only needed that for the national release the following year thanks to Quebec's language laws. However, Saskatoon's test masks would see some significant changes in 1996 as Ranford changed teams, the Jets left Winnipeg rendering Cheveldae's mask moot, and both Flaherty and Hebert were removed from the goalie mask choices.

Clearly, the masks were a hit in Saskatoon because 1996 saw the masks released nationally as part of the McDonald's promotion to help sell fries. I'm not certain McDonald's has ever needed any help selling their most famous side dish, but the promotion was pretty popular based upon the online discussions over the goalie masks that still exist today. Heck, you may still have some of these!

You might be asking about the singular-language masks because those clearly would be different, from a collector's point of view, than the bilingual masks released one year later. There actually were differences in the two sets produced as one can see some of the mask design changes here based on updates made on masks in the NHL while all of the test masks sat on slightly shorter bases. Because of the rarity of the test masks, they usually sell for more than the more common 1996 masks, but it's pretty clear that collectors are going to want them all in order to have complete collections.

You may have noticed the website noted on the image linked above. According to La Vie Est Une Puck - shouldn't that be "rondelle"? - it was noted by the author that one other mask exists. He writes,

"According to Greg Harrison, the designer of the majority of the real masks reproduced, the Vernon does indeed exist, but in only 3-4 copies and is not part of the 'Test Run' collection. For a reason that he himself does not know, McDonald's decided not to market it."

The author of the blog piece above even went one step further, posting the image to the right of Mike Vernon's mask from the Detroit Red Wings. You may be asking why wouldn't McDonald's make this mask, and I don't have any clue why it didn't make the set. It would make total sense to have it included in the 1996 full release since the other five "Original Six" teams were represented by their star goalies, but it would appear that John Vanbiesbrouck may have been the replacement for Vernon. The reason I say that is because Vanbiesbrouck's cage on his actual mask is significantly different than the one used on his McDonald's mask. Coincidence? Maybe... but maybe not. In any case, there are a handful of Vernon McDonald's masks floating around out there and, as the author of the blog calls them, these "holy grail" masks must be located and have more photographic evidence produced!

There's a fun dive down a rabbit hole all about a collectible that many people may have lying around in a box that they had totally forgotten. If you have any of these, let me know! I do have four of them - Thibault, Potvin, Ranford, and Roy - from the 1996 set, so we should compare notes on which ones you may have. If you think these are cool, there are listings on eBay all over the place so you shouldn't have trouble getting into the McDonald's goalie mask scene!

The only downside? None of the masks come with McDonald's fries!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!