Shifty Interview: The Story Behind Joey Daccord's Mask Artist

[upbeat music] Today, we have a very exciting artist chatting with us.

We have seen his work on the Seattle Krakens or Sharks games this season, and his mask for Joey Daccord won best mask of the NHL 2026 on our fan vote competition this year.

I'm very happy to welcome Shiftee to our Every Mask Has a Story podcast.

Welcome, Shiftee.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Of course.

So I'm gonna start with the question that we are going to ask most mask artists on this show, how did you get started with mask art?

So I grew up racing dirt bikes.

I always had helmets painted, was a fan of, obviously, my buddies, you know, and th- their helmets painted.

When I quit racing, quit doing all that stuff, I decided, "You know what? I'm gonna give this a try." So I started painting, uh, dirt bike helmets first.

I'm from Bakersfield, California, so obviously the Bakersfield Condors, they had a team way back in the day in the West Coast Hockey League.

So I got hooked up with-

Mm

...

the goalie there at the time, which was Kevin St. Pierre.

Yeah, just started from there, and then obviously 20-something years later, finally made it to the NHL.

[laughs]

Yeah.

That's amazing.

That's cool, the progression from different sport into hockey as well.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

I do, I, I started with the motocross stuff, obviously.

I grew up around automotive racing as well, which if you've seen my Instagram, I still do a lot of that stuff as well.