How hard would Bernie Geoffrion's shot be today?

[Ziostilon]

Slap shot, wrist shot, whatever... just whichever he can use in a game

With all the improvements in training and most notably the sticks which players use now.
I think Chara, Weber, Souray are all around that 105mph area.

So how hard/ fast do you see it being. and do you see it being released often during a real game?

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[JFA87-66-99]

He would probably have one of the hardest shots in the game today.

 

[Rhiessan71]

Mac daddy still holds the official record and he used a completely ole school plain wooden stick.
Besides, from most accounts, Bobby Hull and his brother Denis had two of the hardest shots ever.
Bobby's shot was once clocked at 118.3 MPH and even he said he thought Denis's shot was even faster/harder albeit quite wild with it.

 

[lextune]

Slap shot, wrist shot, whatever... just whichever he can use in a game

With all the improvements in training and most notably the sticks which players use now.
I think Chara, Weber, Souray are all around that 105mph area.

So how hard/ fast do you see it being. and do you see it being released often during a real game?

"It is a common misconception that composite sticks make for harder slap shots. As it relates to slap shots specifically, wooden sticks have very similar properties to composite sticks, and for most players there will be very little difference in velocity between wood and other materials."

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Mac daddy still holds the official record and he used a completely ole school plain wooden stick.
Besides, from most accounts, Bobby Hull and his brother Denis had two of the hardest shots ever.
Bobby's shot was once clocked at 118.3 MPH and even he said he thought Denis's shot was even faster/harder albeit quite wild with it.

When Bobby Hull shot the puck his teammates didn't need to screen the goalie.
When Dennis shot, screening the goalie was the safest place to be.

I remember Rod Gilbert saying when Vic Hatfield would wind up for a slapper, he'd go right to the front of the net, so he wouldn't get hit.

 

[Hardyvan123]

When Bobby Hull shot the puck his teammates didn't need to screen the goalie.
When Dennis shot, screening the goalie was the safest place to be.

I remember Rod Gilbert saying when Vic Hatfield would wind up for a slapper, he'd go right to the front of the net, so he wouldn't get hit.

sounds like some of the guys I play hockey with

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

sounds like some of the guys I play hockey with

Yep, gotta know your teammates.

 

[Rhiessan71]

When Bobby Hull shot the puck his teammates didn't need to screen the goalie.
When Dennis shot, screening the goalie was the safest place to be.

Denis' shot was so hard and so wild that he used to break seats in the stands on a regular basis in practice.
The coach in Chicago finally had enough and told him he was going to have to pay for every seat he broke from then on

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

When Bobby Hull shot the puck his teammates didn't need to screen the goalie.
When Dennis shot, screening the goalie was the safest place to be.

I remember Rod Gilbert saying when Vic Hatfield would wind up for a slapper, he'd go right to the front of the net, so he wouldn't get hit.

With Gaston Gingras, everybody would duck, LOL!

 

[BenchBrawl]

Is Over 9000 appropriate here?

But seriously I dont really know , just depends on the technic and ''slapshot movement'' he have , it doesnt matter which era you play a human body is still a human body so in theory if he has a better technic or natural weight transfer he might have the hardest shot ( not what i'm saying just in theory ) This is also why I don't understand the fools that think that the best player of each era couldn't play against the ''trained'' modern player , sure it's more difficult but talent is still talent and when you're an exception you can still beat average player training or not , and I dont think the human body has change a lot in the last 100 years even if the average height and weight of NHLer is bigger the elite talent is not necessarily better.

 

[Infinite Vision*]

I'm sorry but I've seen a fair amount of Bobby Hull games and I honestly don't buy that his shot was really that hard.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

Mac daddy still holds the official record and he used a completely ole school plain wooden stick.
Besides, from most accounts, Bobby Hull and his brother Denis had two of the hardest shots ever.
Bobby's shot was once clocked at 118.3 MPH and even he said he thought Denis's shot was even faster/harder albeit quite wild with it.

I remember reading as a kid that Hull`s shot was clocked at 118 MPH. I find that hard to believe since Chara`s shot is around 107 MPH with the use of a far better stick. Chara is also much bigger than Hull. If you look at pictures of Hull`s physique he was very muscular. But most players look like that today. Hull still might have been extraordinary strong, but for his shot to be that much harder than players today mystifies me.

 

[Infinite Vision*]

I remember reading as a kid that Hull`s shot was clocked at 118 MPH. I find that hard to believe since Chara`s shot is around 107 MPH with the use of a far better stick. Chara is also much bigger than Hull. If you look at pictures of Hull`s physique he was very muscular. But most players look like that today. Hull still might have been extraordinary strong, but for his shot to be that much harder than players today mystifies me.

Yeah, a lot of people here don't like to believe that the physical abilities of players improve with time. Not talent just so everyone's clear, just ability.

 

[Fire Sweeney]

Hull's shot was clocked while he was skating at full speed, which adds some velocity for sure.

 

[Rhiessan71]

I remember reading as a kid that Hull`s shot was clocked at 118 MPH. I find that hard to believe since Chara`s shot is around 107 MPH with the use of a far better stick. Chara is also much bigger than Hull. If you look at pictures of Hull`s physique he was very muscular. But most players look like that today. Hull still might have been extraordinary strong, but for his shot to be that much harder than players today mystifies me.

Marc-Andre Bergeron is only 5'9", 5'10" on a good day and he was blasting 104-105mph bullets in the Habs skills comp last year.
Size doesn't matter.

It's kinda like in baseball where the hard throwers are in the mid to high 90's and every once in a while a freak shows up throwing 100mph+
Bobby and his brother were the freaks.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

Marc-Andre Bergeron is only 5'9", 5'10" on a good day and he was blasting 104-105mph bullets in the Habs skills comp last year.
Size doesn't matter.

It's kinda like in baseball where the hard throwers are in the mid to high 90's and every once in a while a freak shows up throwing 100mph+
Bobby and his brother were the freaks.

It sounds like they could shoot harder than everybody else. I just have a hard time with the 118 mph. But they were clocking pitchers accurately back then too. Mickey Mantle was known for hitting balls 500 feet and he was Hull's size (5-11, 200). He had incredible strength and bat speed. Not too many guys, if any, hit them that far today. Reggie Jackson also hit long homers - 1971 All star game est. at over 500 ft. He was 6 ft , 195. Maybe that is the ideal size for power?

 

[cptjeff]

The analyses I've seen of the Hull's shots basically boil down to tow points:

The Hulls worked on a farm doing hard labor growing up and every offseason. They were freakishly strong.

Added to that, they used much heavier sticks then average then, and by far heavier then what's allowed today. That gets you more force due to the weight of the stick and a stiffer stick, which translates more force. And since they were so strong, they could use such heavy sticks without hurting other aspects of their game.

Basically, composite sticks don't affect a slapper much at all. What they offer is based much more on consistency, 'pop' or how fast the material recoils after being flexed, and yes, weight, which has plenty of benefits. They let players have a much faster release and they allow sticks to last much longer without going soft.

 

[cptjeff]

The analyses I've seen of the Hull's shots basically boil down to tow points:

The Hulls worked on a farm doing hard labor growing up and every offseason. They were freakishly strong.

Added to that, they used much heavier sticks then average then, and by far heavier then what's allowed today. That gets you more force due to the weight of the stick and a stiffer stick, which translates more force. And since they were so strong, they could use such heavy sticks without hurting other aspects of their game.

Basically, composite sticks don't affect a slapper much at all. What they offer is based much more on consistency, 'pop' or how fast the material recoils after being flexed, and yes, weight, which has plenty of benefits. They let players have a much faster release and they allow sticks to last much longer without going soft.

 

[Peter9]

Geoffrion's slap shot was something to behold. Boom Boom was an accurate nickname. Anyone who witnessed his goalscoring in the last half of the 1960-61 season, when he managed to pot 50 goals in 64 games to equal the Rocket's then standing record although at the season's halfway mark he looked like he would come nowhere near it, knows the tremendous power and accuracy of his shooting. I met him once. He wasn't very tall; he was powerfully built. The same was true of Bobby Hull, who earned my admiration--and a bit of my hate since I was a Canadiens fan. He was built like a bull and was a very fast skater.

So I don't think heighth is determinative at all. It's a combination of power and technique that is determinative.

In the measurable sports, like athletics (track and field), performances have improved over time, and I think the same is true in all sports. But the superb athletes of times gone by would still shine today given the same advantages today's athletes have. Geoffrion playing today would have one of the game's best slap shots. Geoffrion is very underrated, in my view, although he didn't quite measure up to his older teammate, Maurice Richard, who had one of the game's best wrist shots and backhand shots. Geoffrion was plagued by injury problems throughout his career. I loved that Canadiens team of the 1950s and count myself fortunate to have witnessed one of hockey's greatest eras.

I'm not a fan of the slapshot because of what it did to the game when everyone began using it. It could have been made illegal, although that was never a serious possibility. The advent of bigger goaltender padding was an inevitable response to screened and deflected slap shots. The slap shot largely brought an end to goals scored from beautiful open ice play.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

I'm not sure that Geoffrion's shot was particularly hard by historical standards; it was just that he basically introduced the slapshot to hockey and of course it was hard because nobody had ever seen anything like it before.

Anyways, here's a 10 minute video from The History of Hockey about Geoffrion.

http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/51707/1/

 

[Mayor Bee]

It sounds like they could shoot harder than everybody else. I just have a hard time with the 118 mph. But they were clocking pitchers accurately back then too. Mickey Mantle was known for hitting balls 500 feet and he was Hull's size (5-11, 200). He had incredible strength and bat speed. Not too many guys, if any, hit them that far today. Reggie Jackson also hit long homers - 1971 All star game est. at over 500 ft. He was 6 ft , 195. Maybe that is the ideal size for power?

It's not the ideal size, but there's something very important to remember. In joints within the body, there's an inverse relationship between flexibility and stability. Someone who has extremely stiff hips is unlikely to suffer an injury to that area without application of extreme amounts of force, whereas someone with more flexibility is more likely to suffer an injury to that area (whether muscular, to the joint itself, or to the connective tissue).

Individual people also have unique physiological variances that simply cannot be fully known. I've known people with extra muscles that are far from standard and I've known people who have fewer muscles than normal. I know one who has an extra cervical vertebra, and one who has two additional thoracic vertebrae. I know someone who has a biceps tendon attachment on both sides that's quite clearly abnormal, and someone who has only two heads on each tricep. Heck, my father-in-law was measured just a few months ago to have a lung capacity of a very small amount less than Michael Phelps (and has consistently demonstrated the same results over a number of years), and his daily schedule consists of work and not much else.

Each one of these factors can have enormous impacts not just on daily life, but on athletic ability. A change in the attachment of the biceps tendons can have an incredible impact on exactly how much power can be derived from that muscle, either by being stronger or weaker. It is not outside the realm of possibility that both Hull brothers had some type of small genetic advantage that could have enabled them to fire a puck substantially harder than anyone else in history. When you consider that Brett was also known for an overpowering shot in spite of a physique that can best be described as "doughy", it would seem to lend credence to that idea.

As an aside, something else to consider with baseball is that hitters pre-1960 were using bats with much thicker handles and thinner barrels, ergo less bat speed, ergo less distance. With a modern bat, Mantle could have propelled the ball quite a bit farther.

 

[revolverjgw]

I remember reading as a kid that Hull`s shot was clocked at 118 MPH. I find that hard to believe since Chara`s shot is around 107 MPH with the use of a far better stick. Chara is also much bigger than Hull. If you look at pictures of Hull`s physique he was very muscular. But most players look like that today. Hull still might have been extraordinary strong, but for his shot to be that much harder than players today mystifies me.

I've heard about the 118 MPH thing, but never saw any evidence to back up that it was true. There is an old Sports Illustrated article that was posted here that talked about his 100 MPH slapshot, I think it was an estimate so I'd say you can tack on a few more MPH, but 118 is unreasonable. If it was THAT hard, it would be cited a hell of a lot more, because that would be a superhuman feat.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Marc-Andre Bergeron is only 5'9", 5'10" on a good day and he was blasting 104-105mph bullets in the Habs skills comp last year.
Size doesn't matter.

It's kinda like in baseball where the hard throwers are in the mid to high 90's and every once in a while a freak shows up throwing 100mph+
Bobby and his brother were the freaks.

Nolan Ryan.

Not big. Not now. How come?

 

[Epsilon]

I've heard about the 118 MPH thing, but never saw any evidence to back up that it was true. There is an old Sports Illustrated article that was posted here that talked about his 100 MPH slapshot, I think it was an estimate so I'd say you can tack on a few more MPH, but 118 is unreasonable. If it was THAT hard, it would be cited a hell of a lot more, because that would be a superhuman feat.

Was going to post this, I've never seen it sourced from reputable first-hand information. It sounds like ones of those legends that's gone around enough to become a truism that people don't bother to verify anymore. And even if there is some truth to it, I would only believe it if the measurement was done with calibrated electronic timing equipment. Without that, it's worth about as much as some of these 40 yard dash times that get reported in football where a player's 40YD time suggests they can run a sub 10.10 100m sprint, yet they've never electronically clocked a time lower than 10.60.

 

[pvr]

Just dug this very interesting read from Popular Mechanics, February 1968. Begins at page 110-114, continues onto page 204, and ends on page 210.

http://books.google.com/books?id=jd...&resnum=3&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Goes into great detail about Hull, as well as other players. A guy named Lloyd Percival apparently did some research on hockey players back then. Quotes the 118.3, which I gather Percival measured himself, as well as others' slap shot and wrist shot speeds. After looking at the lists on pg 114, I am dubious about the shot speed measurements.

Here's a pic of Hull pitching hay. http://www.kuklaskorner.com/images/uploads/bh.gif