Dallas Stars goalie debuts new Mario Kart helmet: ‘I played a lot growing up’

polygon.com:

With Dallas Stars goalie Jake Oettinger injured within minutes of Friday’s Ottawa Senators game, Scott Wedgewood stepped up into the crease. Not only did Wedgewood stop 25 of 27 goals to help the Stars win 5-4 over the Senators, but he debuted a special new Mario Kart goalie mask.

As Wedgewood dives for pucks, he flashed the little details that make up the mask, created by goalie mask artist Dave Gunnarsson. On one side, Wedgewood’s got baby Peach to represent his unborn daughter — expected next year — riding with his two dogs. (The baby Peach on his mask was also something of a gender reveal, too, he said.) On the other, he’s included caricatures of fellow teammates Oettinger and Jason Robertson riding in a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe vehicle. Slapped right in the middle of the mask’s dangler is the iconic Mario star — painted in green, the team’s main color. There are a bunch more details scattered around the mask, like more stars and the black-and-white checkerboard banner to signal crossing the finish line.

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Wedgewood told Polygon he came up with the idea after several players got a group Halloween costume going: Dead Mario Kart drivers who’ve “fallen off the course one too many times,” he added. Adding in his future daughter as baby Peach made sense, too.

“The star is obviously the gold star in Mario,” he said. “You can put that on the mask in green and tie it into the Stars in a way that everybody understands.”

Hockey goalies wear a different mask than the rest of the team — and it’s one of hockey’s most fun traditions for these to be decorated. There’s been a ton of variety and pop culture references over the years, like Henrik Lundqvist’s Back to the Future mask and John