Farewell to Boom Boom

The Rangers continued their slide Saturday night, dropping a 1-0 contest to the Canadians. Craig Rivet scored on the power play towards the end of the first period and Cristobal Huet made it stand up with 26 saves. The loss is the fourth in a row for New York and while Carolina and Ottawa pull away, they remain in first place by one point over the Flyers.

It was a strange night in Montreal as the club had finally decided to honor Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion by retiring his number, but sadly Geoffrion had died earlier in the day due to stomach cancer. The club went ahead with the ceremony and all of Geoffrion’s family was there under very difficult circumstances. Geoffrion was the inventor of the slap shot and also played for and coached the Rangers during the 1960’s.

Photo by Ryan Remioriz/AP via Yahoo

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By Peter Trinkle on March 12, 2006 3:47 PM

Comments [rss]

Barry Popik

Boomb Boom was great great, but he didn't invent the slap shot. See my American Dialect Society post at:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0603B&L=ADS-L&P=R6183&I=-3

Peter

Thanks, e.v.s, terrible mistake by me. I will fix it.

e.v.s.

hey peter -

while i applaud you for trying to get and keep the hockey thing goin' here at gothamist (myself a 15-year rangers season ticket holder) i would hope that you'd fact-check the name of the HOFer your column is mostly about. it's spelled 'Geoffrion.'

nice touch of the canadiens to have all the skaters wear his sweater in warmups.

frustrating loss to thrashers tonight too.

keep up the hockey work.

d.

craig

He got his nickname from the sound the puck would make when he missed the net and it crashed into the boards.

kwanito

Right on, Shawn. Hockey fans, even relatively young ones like me who just learned of the man's accomplishments, can appreciate his innovation and contribution to the game.