How fast was bobby hull shot

Lemaire is remembered today as the coach who turned the New Jersey Devils into Stanley Cup champs and was behind the bench for the first seasons of the Minnesota Wild. But Lemaire was also a Hall of Fame player, a member of the Montreal dynasties of the late '60s and late '70s -- and the owner of one of the biggest slap shots in NHL history, one that he developed as a boy by playing with a heavy steel puck.

His most famous goal was a slapper -- a rocket from the red line that beat Chicago goaltender Tony Esposito late in the second period of Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final. That goal triggered a Montreal rally as the Canadiens overcame a deficit for a win and the first of six championships in eight years.

Lemaire was a terrific two-way center, but his slap shot gave him a weapon that not many players owned. Imagine being a goal scorer but only the third-best player in your own family. Such was the fate of Dennis Hull , who was overshadowed during his playing career by big brother Bobby and later on by nephew Brett. But while Dennis didn't put up the kind of offensive numbers the other Hulls did, he was no slouch -- and when it came to booming slap shots, there were those who said his was better than Bobby's.

Dennis' shot usually was considered the heavier of the two, and though he didn't have Bobby's speed or scoring ability, he did put up 40 goals in , reached the goal mark on three other occasions and played in five All-Star Games.

It would have been fascinating to have Dennis and Bobby square off in a Hardest Shot competition during their primes. Instead, the question of which Hull had the bigger shot will have to remain unanswered. Souray's accuracy with his slap shot has never quite matched his velocity, but he's one of those players who makes shot-blocking one of the NHL's most dangerous assignments.

But it wasn't until the season that his offensive skills came to the fore -- he tied Adrian Aucoin for first place in the Hardest Shot competition at He added 12 more in , then set a career high in ' with 26 goals -- including 19 on the power play, a record for a defenseman. His slap shot's reputation continued to grow around the NHL after he signed with Edmonton in the summer of -- he finished third in the Hardest Shot competition in and set the unofficial record of The year-old played with Dallas last season and signed with Anaheim this summer -- bringing his big shot with him.

But one reason he finds the net so often is the velocity of his shot -- he was clocked at Stamkos also became an Internet sensation when he had a slap shot that was clocked at But what sets him apart from other big gunners is his ability to get his shot off quickly and on target.

He had a career-high 60 goals this past season -- and he's only The Nashville Predators ' defenseman cranked up a mph rocket during this year's competition -- a harder shot than any taken since the competition began in -- only to lose to Chara's record-setting The year before, he took a shot clocked at But coming in second to the NHL's reigning top gun is no shame -- and Nashville's opponents know the one thing they can't do is give Weber time and space to fire rockets from the point.

He had 19 goals in and has scored 74 times in the last four seasons. He won again in with a record-setting blast of At 6-foot-3 and pounds, Iafrate was an explosive skater, hit like a tank and had a slap shot that could make goaltenders duck. Bobby Hull's memory tape ends, the images dissolving at the point when he disappeared from his younger children's lives in the aftermath of the bitter divorce 11 years ago from his wife, Joanne.

The headlines in Canada's newspapers screamed of physical abuse, huge monetary awards, claims and counterclaims of everything from infidelity to bankruptcy. Bobby Hull, the mythic figure in Canada's national sport, who had so long distinguished himself as one of the game's most charismatic ambassadors, was portrayed as a man out of control. It pains me to talk about it all again, and it's a shame that Brett should have to recount it all, too. That child is one of the world's special creatures, and the force of his personality was, in many ways, the glue that held our family together.

He's made his peace with his dad. That he could forgive him is a blessing. That he could forget, I think, would be asking too much. Bobby Hull was born in Pointe Anne, Ontario, "a town," he says, "of people and dogs. Bobby, the eldest boy in a family of 11 children, spent his days breaking pitchforks in bales of hay and hockey sticks on the ice, developing some of the most famously cabled arms in hockey history. I ran. And I couldn't wait for winter.

My father would sometimes find me in the heat of summer standing in the house with my equipment on, sweating crazily. I just wanted the feel of it. Hockey became an obsession. Hull, whose often random experimentation with slap shots unleashed from curved rather than straightedge stick blades both traumatized and revolutionized the sport, crashed and burned his way through 16 N. With a fusion of indefatigability and quiet malevolence, Hull scored a career total of goals, notching more than 50 in a season five times.

I tried to be constructive. I can't fathom results coming of anything but hard work. Full of grit and yet capable of astonishing grace, Bobby Hull was a swift-skating left wing who manufactured goals with his sheer mania for work, as well as his volcanic blast of a slap shot.

And if he lost the majority of his teeth plowing through defenses, he never lost face. One of the enduring pictures of the Golden Jet, as he was known, showed Hull, his jaw recently wired shut to correct a break, refusing to surrender in a brutally one-sided fight with Montreal's John Ferguson, a primitive player who did most of his N.

Blood ran in rivers off Hull's face, and yet he stood in and hung on. Joanne McKay, a figure skater in the nightly show at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago in the 60's, couldn't help falling for Bobby Hull when he suddenly appeared, his face stitched, his clothes stylish, one afternoon at practice and bent to hand her a skate guard. But for Brett, Bobby was an ordinary father, worthy of worship but also a source of worry, gone too much of the time and often too tough when he was around.

Bobby recalls sitting on 3-year-old Brett's chest, forcibly lacing the first pair of skates on his frightened son and laughing at the boy's frantic flops to safety. He was a normal dad who did something special. He wasn't much of a teacher when it came to hockey. He wanted us to watch him and to do what he did. He was a typical dad. Nothing was good enough. And then, for Brett, 14, nothing was all there was.

The antagonism was evidently so consuming that Bobby Hull chose to exclude several of his children, along with his former wife, from much of the next decade of his life. According to Brett's mother, Bobby never called his son, never wrote. His rare personal appearances at home often as not ended up messily, the police required at least once. But I went to see a psychologist when we moved to Vancouver.

He helped me understand what the size of the loss must have been for Brett. It was a dual blow -- the loss of a father and the loss of a great sports figure for a kid who loved the sport himself. Bobby Hull, who adamantly refuses to discuss the divorce, its emotional aftershocks or his own behavior, will say only that his former wife's version of events is incomplete.

He says he believes that his children, with their skewed understandings of the circumstances, are in ways like victims of a cult. Brett, whose words about the family tumult are spare and calculatedly unemotional, appears uninterested in assigning blame or mucking around in uncomfortable talk about damage or hurt.

Teams would be lined up for a face-off against the Blues, and there would be this singing. Their triple takes left them staring at Brett Hull, his mouth moving, his blond hair streaming down his neck, croaking like a member of the Beach Boys. Maguire says.

While Hull's singing is far from another talent, it underscores his remarkable ability to relax and to disarm the opposition. With Gretzky, people understood the guy was going to be great from the time he was Brett went from nothing to God in what amounts to an instant.

It's been an apotheosis during which he has made no known enemies. In fact, Hull's chutzpah without hubris -- not to mention the ripple effect his huge contract has had on league salaries in general -- has made him one of the best-liked players in the N. In a vote by his peers last season, Hull was named the sport's most dominant performer, winning in a landslide over Gretzky. Hull, in turn, is a practicing pacifist on the ice, refusing to fight and even proclaiming himself loath to cheap-shot an opponent.

I don't want to hurt anyone. Hull's life off the ice also reflects the easygoing side of his personality. He is unmarried, unhurried about becoming so.

His golf game and the fortunes of the World Wrestling Federation appear to arouse his greatest passions. Hull's position in the locker room of the Blues is unchallenged, his stature in St. Louis mythically outsized. Souray's accuracy with his slap shot has never quite matched his velocity, but he's one of those players who makes shot-blocking one of the NHL's most dangerous assignments. But it wasn't until the season that his offensive skills came to the fore -- he tied Adrian Aucoin for first place in the Hardest Shot competition at He added 12 more in , then set a career high in ' with 26 goals -- including 19 on the power play, a record for a defenseman.

His slap shot's reputation continued to grow around the NHL after he signed with Edmonton in the summer of -- he finished third in the Hardest Shot competition in and set the unofficial record of The year-old played with Dallas last season and signed with Anaheim this summer -- bringing his big shot with him. But one reason he finds the net so often is the velocity of his shot -- he was clocked at Stamkos also became an Internet sensation when he had a slap shot that was clocked at But what sets him apart from other big gunners is his ability to get his shot off quickly and on target.

He had a career-high 60 goals this past season -- and he's only The Nashville Predators' defenseman cranked up a mph rocket during this year's competition -- a harder shot than any taken since the competition began in -- only to lose to Chara's record-setting The year before, he took a shot clocked at But coming in second to the NHL's reigning top gun is no shame -- and Nashville's opponents know the one thing they can't do is give Weber time and space to fire rockets from the point.

He had 19 goals in and has scored 74 times in the last four seasons. He won again in with a record-setting blast of At 6-foot-3 and pounds, Iafrate was an explosive skater, hit like a tank and had a slap shot that could make goaltenders duck. He scored 20 or more goals three times in his 12 NHL seasons, but played only games due to injuries before retiring at age Boston's Zdeno Chara has won the Hardest Shot competition at the last five All-Star Weekends, but he still has a way to go to top MacInnis' career mark of seven, set in a span of 12 years from MacInnis' shot was a weapon from the day he stepped onto an NHL rink with the Calgary Flames during the season, though it took the rest of his game a few years to catch up.

He sent a calling card on Jan. The power of his shot made MacInnis one of the most feared players in the NHL -- especially on the power play. He was one of the few players who was a threat to score from center ice. After being used mostly as a power-play specialist in his early years, MacInnis became one of the NHL's best defensemen, making the First All-Star team four times and winning the Norris Trophy in His big shot lasted throughout his career -- he won the last of his seven Hardest Shot competitions at age The "Golden Jet" didn't invent the slapper, but he took it to a whole new level in the s.

The most feared sight for a goaltender for much of the decade was Hull winding up in the Chicago zone and racing up left wing before firing away.