The Future is Here: Tampa Bay Goalie Mask Glows in the Dark

Everyone who has ever seen the Back to the Future trilogy knows that the future starts in 2015, so why do we still need roads, why do our sneakers not lace themselves, and why do our hockey goalie masks not glow in the dark?

Well, David Gunnarsson of DaveArt.com has taken care of one of those for us. He created a flashy (as it were) new mask for the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Ben Bishop. The mask’s most notable feature is that it glows in the dark, thanks to a luminescent paint Gunnarsson calls GLOW Tech FX.

The mask, which will be on full display when the lights go down for national anthems, is meant to reflect lightning, as in the Tampa Bay Lightning, per a challenge the goaltender issued to the designer.

Gunnarsson attributes inspiration for the glow-in-the-dark mask to the similarly illuminated helmets in the classic 1982 science fiction movie Tron.

The Lightning’s next game is Friday at home versus the Chicago BlackHawks, so the future is still at least two days away. We’ll be watching when the lights go down.