Forward played every championship-round game from 1951-60
© Michael Burns Sr./Hockey Hall of Fame
Late Montreal Canadiens legend Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion is in the Stanley Cup Final record book, his two goals scored in a 12-second span in Game 3 against Detroit Red Wings goalie Terry Sawchuk on April 7, 1955, the fastest two in any final-round game.
That record has been threatened through the years, Wayne Gretzky scoring twice in 15 seconds for the Edmonton Oilers in 1985, and Dick Duff with two in 19 seconds for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1963.
But The Boomer, who won the Stanley Cup six times, the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year in 1951-52, the Art Ross Trophy in 1954-55 and 1960-61 as the NHL’s points leader and the Hart Trophy in 1960-61 as the League’s most valuable player, holds one unofficial standard that will be his forever.
In a six-team NHL, Geoffrion played every single final-round game between 1951 and ’60, skating in 53 consecutive games during the Canadiens’ 10 trips to the Final that decade, which produced six championships and four runner-up finishes.
© Louis Jaques, Macdonald Stewart/Hockey Hall of Fame
Bernie Geoffrion in two 1950s portraits, the image at left one of a series of NHL player photos that appeared in the weekend color supplements of newspapers across Canada.
In today’s 32-team League, the odds are stacked almost impossibly against a team winning five consecutive championships, as the Canadiens did from 1956-60. The chances of any team advancing to the Final 10 years in a row are even slimmer than that.
But even more remarkable than the Canadiens’ five straight titles is Geoffrion’s incredible streak that’s been salted away until the end of time and beyond.
Ranked behind him and his 53 straight Final games are four fellow Canadiens of that era: Dickie Moore (48), Floyd Curry (41), Bert Olmstead (40) and Tom Johnson (38).
Geoffrion ranks fifth all-time among Stanley Cup Final point-scorers with 46. He is third in goals with 24, tied with Bryan Trottier and Alex Delvecchio for eighth in assists with 22.
The Boomer’s 53-game streak shines as a tribute to his longevity and cast-iron will during a time when heavy ash sticks were wielded like clubs and rivalries boiled the blood in the so-called Original Six era.
© Alain Brouillard/Hockey Hall of Fame
Bernie Geoffrion signs autographs for fans outside the Canadiens’ Montreal Forum dressing room during the 1957-58 season, a young Henri Richard ducking by on the right.
In Geoffrion’s day, facing every opponent 14 times in the regular season guaranteed a strong bitterness with gusts to hatred by the time the playoffs rolled round.
Geoffrion broke into the NHL in 1950-51, playing only 18 regular-season games. But Canadiens coach Dick Irvin Sr. skated him in all 11 playoff matches, the Canadiens defeating the Red Wings in the six-game NHL Semifinals before falling 4-1 to the Maple Leafs in the Final.
Boomer led the NHL in playoff goals twice during the decade-long stretch — he scored six in 1953-54 and 11 in 1956-57, his 10 assists in 1959-60 leading the League.
Only once from 1951-52, when he joined the Canadiens full time, through 1959-60 did Geoffrion play a full 70-game schedule, doing so in 1954-55. But with guts and the bandages of the team’s training staff, he somehow was good to go in every playoff game.
© David Bier Studios/Montreal Canadiens
Bernie Geoffrion in a classic publicity shot by Montreal Canadiens photographer David Bier, and on March 16, 1961, with the puck he used to score his 50th goal of the season, equaling the single-season feat of retired teammate Maurice Richard.
From 1956-57 through 1957-58, he was healthy enough to play only 83 of his team’s 140 games but somehow answered the bell every night in the playoffs.
Geoffrion’s 10 consecutive years playing in the Final are tied for the most in the NHL with Canadiens defensemen Doug Harvey and Johnson, and forward Olmstead, with Montreal and Toronto, though he’s alone in having played every game during that streak.
The Boomer’s run of 109 consecutive postseason games, including the Semifinals and Final, ended in Chicago on March 28, 1961, when he was sidelined with knee ligaments torn in Game 3 of the Semifinals against the Chicago Black Hawks. And even that was a story.
© Michael Burns Sr./Hockey Hall of Fame
Montreal Canadiens forward Bernie Geoffrion battles Toronto defenseman Bob Baun in front of goalie Johnny Bower during a 1960 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Geoffrion would miss Games 4 and 5 in Chicago and Montreal, his knee in a cast. But with his team down 3-2 in the series and facing elimination, being badly outmuscled by the Black Hawks and with Montreal’s Cup streak on the line, he and Harvey, the Canadiens captain, retreated to the women’s washroom on the rails to Chicago for Game 6 and removed the cast from the leg with a knife pilfered from the train’s galley.
Geoffrion, who said the procedure “seemed to take hours,” was given limited power-play time by coach Toe Blake in Game 6, the pain-seared joint frozen numb. The Canadiens were bounced 3-0, but not before The Boomer had set another unofficial playoff record that’s surely safe forever: the mark for most casts sawed off a leg by a teammate with a knife aboard a moving train.
That adventure joined another in 1958, when Geoffrion had collided lightly with a teammate in a late-January practice. He skated away but collapsed a few moments later in extreme pain, rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency two-hour surgery to repair his ruptured bowel.
Geoffrion was told that his season, and possibly his career, were done. But six weeks after being discharged from hospital to recuperate, he was back in uniform, scoring six goals with five assists in the playoffs to help his team win its third straight championship.
© David Bier Studios/Montreal Canadiens
Bernie Geoffrion (l.) with linemates Jean Beliveau (c.) and Bert Olmstead in a 1950s publicity photo taken at the Montreal Forum.
The Boomer would prove to be just as large in death as he was throughout his colorful, gregarious life.
The Canadiens announced in October 2005 that they would retire his No. 5 to the Bell Centre rafters the following March, after the November 2005 retirement of the No. 12 worn by Moore and Yvan Cournoyer.
As sad fate would have it, stomach cancer claimed Geoffrion 12 hours before his March 11, 2006, ceremony. His career was celebrated with an emotional banner-raising while his passing was deeply mourned.
“Boom should have been in Hollywood, in the movies,” Moore said of his friend and former teammate following the 40-minute pregame salute. “Al Pacino? James Cagney? Pussycats next to The Boomer.
© Imperial Oil-Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Canadiens’ Bernie Geoffrion (r.) and captain Maurice Richard in a late-1950s Montreal Forum dressing-room photo.
“I introduced him to (then-Canadiens owner) George Gillett. Boom shook his hand and said, ‘Hmm, you’re Mr. Gillett. The man with the money. Well, I’ll tell you one thing: Don’t start your car.’ George loved it.”
Geoffrion, Moore and Jean Beliveau, the Canadiens’ iconic, longest-tenured captain, were all born in 1931, seven months apart. As tight as brothers, all are gone now, Beliveau having died in 2014, Moore the following year.
Beliveau, who roomed on the road for a time with Geoffrion, had his own mob-themed story about his friend upon his death.
© Imperial Oil-Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Bernie Geoffrion playfully poses with a magazine at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel in 1962.
“Boom loved gangster movies, and one night we were in Chicago, of all places, and he said: ‘Jean, there’s a movie on TV tonight called ‘Job in Chicago.’ There’ll be gangsters, machine guns, lots of shooting,’” Beliveau said.
“So, at 9 o’clock, we’re in front of the TV in our hotel room, ready for the movie — Boom readier than me — and it starts on the screen: ‘Job No. 55: Such-and-such a company needs a plumber …’ And then: ‘Job No. 99: Such-and-such a company needs an electrician …’
“‘Job in Chicago’ turned out to be an employment agency offering various jobs in Chicago. Boom hollered, ‘This doesn’t make any sense!’ Then got up, got dressed and stormed downstairs, and I just laughed like crazy.”
Top photo: Bernie Geoffrion in 1955 game action with the Canadiens against Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens.
