Ray Bishop is an artist, but his canvas is far from typical.
"There was a goalie, I saw with a plain white mask one year and I thought 'oh that would be cool to do something like that. Lets combine a couple loves: artwork and hockey'," said Bishop.
Bishop grew up a Red Wings fan so when Detroit goaltender Jimmy Howard came calling, Bishop was happy to help give his masks some character.
When Howard asked Bishop to do a mask for Detroit’s stadium series game at Coor’s Field, Bishop knew immediately what direction he wanted to go in.
"The first thing in my head was something baseball related," said Bishop.
He decided to incorporate Tigers and baseball greats like Ty Cobb, Al Kaline, Kirk Gibson and more.
"Every single time he paints a mask, no matter who its for in the NHL, he puts his everything into it and you can see that in his work every single time," said Howard.
