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Karri Ramo will be fighting for the Flames' starting goalie position this season, and he'll be doing it in style.
After settling in Calgary last season, the Flames' newest Finnish netminder debuted with a brand new, rather unique mask. Wanting a black and white design, and being a fan of the more gothic style, he decided to make a mask inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, "The Raven".
"I think my next mask is going to be something like that too," Ramo says in the above video. As In Goal Magazine revealed - click for pictures of the new lid - he certainly followed through.
Painted once again by Jason Livery of HeadStrongGrafx, it's a much more cohesive design, featuring ravens and ravens' wings (duh), multiple skulls (what's a Finnish goalie mask without skulls? Can you even be a real Finnish goalie if they aren't on there?), and a healthy mix of blood spatters and light gore. Gone is the script of his name on the chin, instead replaced with a skull's teeth (and, in a nice touch, right below the opening of the mask you can see the opening of where the nose cartilage would have been).
Also gone is the Flames logo, replaced with a subtler homage that works much better overall: fire peeking out from behind the teeth, like some kind of hellbeast. Hey, if Ramo wanted to go dark, then he absolutely nailed it with this edition.
No word yet on what Jonas Hiller's mask is going to look like, but considering the fact that he's pulled out some great ones in the past, including his solid black matte and Movember masks; he's got a fire motif to work with; and he's the favourite to win the starting position, it better be good.