Bernard Geoffrion

Bernard (Bernie) Geffrion was born in Montreal, Quebec on January 16, 1931 and played for the Montreal Canadiens from 1950-64, as well as the New York Rangers from 1966-68. Known as an an innovator for being the "father" of the slap shot. Acccording to Geffrion, the first time he did it was when he missed the puck and out of anger, he slapped the puck with his stick and it took off. Shortly thereafter, he discovered he may have come up with something big, so he placed a dummy in front of the net and perfected the "Boom Boom" (what the slap shot was originally referred to). Unbelievably, some people thought that the "boom boom" was a joke and Geffrion's coaches wanted him to stop doing it, but Geffrion refused because he was scoring goals from it. Shortly thereafter, other players started seeing Geffrion's success with it and they started using the slap shot as well and goaltenders started wearing the mask because of it. Some of Geffrion's accomplishments included, being named to the