Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Mr. Hockey Faces His Biggest Challenge

November 1, 2014, 12:27 AM ET [3 Comments]
Adam Kirshenblatt
Hockey Hall of Fame • RSSArchiveCONTACT
There’s been a lot of recollection over the last couple of days in regards to Gordie Howe’s health. Everyone is talking about their memories of Gordie, both as a player and as a person, and everyone has a different story of the same thing, Gordie is one of the classiest people in Hockey. I got that sense a few years ago when I got to interview Mark Howe prior to his induction. The one thing that stuck with me was when he said “Gordie Howe is a better person than he was a hockey player.” When someone says something like that, I don’t think people really look at the literal terms of the statement. Everyone knows that he was a great player throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s, but I don’t know if people of my generation or earlier really know his story and how great he was.

I seriously debated whether I should write this blog now. Mr. Hockey, despite his health concerns, is still alive and fighting. I don’t want to write a eulogy for someone who is still alive as to me it is disrespectful. With that said, why should someone wait to talk about such a great person for our game? I’d sooner tell his story and how much he’s thought of while he’s still around rather than afterwords. Hopefully, after hearing his story and many of his accomplishments, people can truly understand the magnitude of Mark’s statement.

Gordie was born in Floral, Saskatchewan and grew up in Saskatoon in a house, as Gordie used to brag about, that didn’t have running water. His first attempt at professional hockey didn’t go so well. As a 15 year old he was invited to the New York Rangers training camp in Winnipeg. There was little direction from the Rangers as he didn’t even know why the Rangers brought him in. When the trainer asked him what position he played, he said “All of them” because back home he would play where he’s needed. He ended up skating as a Rangers “prospect” as a blue liner because he took a guess at what he should be. Before the end of training camp, the Rangers had offered him a C-Form to become their hockey property. The problem was that Gordie was feeling considerably homesick for the duration of the camp and the Rangers wanted to send him to Notre Dame. Given the fact that Notre Dame was even farther away and that he wasn’t Catholic, Gordie felt that it wasn’t a good fit. So he went back home to Saskatoon.



A young Gordie Howe with the Detroit Red Wings



The next year he had both the Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings interested in him coming to their training camps. Howe remembered how lonely he was the prior year which made him very hesitant to decide on either team. He ended up making his decision by finding out if anyone else from Saskatoon was going to be at either camp where it turned out a couple of his friends were going to Detroit’s. The idea of travelling to Windsor, Ontario with his friends endeared to him better than going to Winnipeg alone. The icing on the cake was something completely foreign to this day and age. The players on the Red Wings each had a team leather jacket. Coming from a household in which he didn’t have that many luxury possessions like that, Gordie wanted one of them. Thus his signing bonus for becoming Detroit’s property was one of the leather jackets. The problem was that Jack Adams, the coach and general manager of the Red Wings, forgot about that part of the deal. So when it came time for Gordie to sign his first professional contract, Gordie refused because he didn’t want to play for a liar. As it was quoted in the book “Networth”, Jack Adams never ran so fast to make sure he got that jacket.

Gordie Howe’s time with the Red Wings for the most part is a story that everybody knows. Those prime years in the late 40s and throughout the 50s, Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard were always debated as the best players in the game, much in the same way Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin was after the 2005 lockout. Maurice began his career in the early 1940s, while Gordie started in the middle of the decade, but the debate about who the best in the league was would revolve around those two. While only scoring seven goals in his first NHL season, Howe made quite the impression on the league when he was challenged by the aforementioned Rocket Richard. Once they finally dropped the gloves, the fight didn’t last long… Gordie knocked him out with one punch. Later, it would be Jean Beliveau who would be in the same tier as Gordie as he began his career in 1950. Those two players would always be considered the best ambassadors in the game during their career and after words.



Even long after his career, Gordie is still one of the best ambassadors of the game



In the years 1941-1960 only 3 teams won the Stanley Cup: Toronto, Montreal, and Detroit. From Detroit’s angle, Gordie Howe was a huge reason that this stat exists. He led the Wings in pretty much every category most years. He along with a core of Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, Red Kelly, and Terry Sawchuck competed in the Stanley Cup finals nine times in the 1950s and 1960s, winning the Cup four of those times (1950, 1952, 1954, 1955). He would win the Hart Trophy half a dozen times as League MVP (1952, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1963) and awarded they Art Ross Trophy six times for the most points in a season (1951-1954, 1957, 1963). By the time he retired the first time in 1972, Gordie ended up having the most goals and points in NHL history at the time (786 goals, 1,809 points), later to be broken by Wayne Gretzky.

After his retirement, he immediately took up a job in the front office, where he hoped he would have a significant impact on the Red Wings future. However, the team didn’t give him anything important to do, which led to some friction. So when his sons, Marty and Mark, were drafted by the WHA’s Houston Aeros which was coached by Bill Dineen, his old Red Wings’ teammate, Gordie had an idea. While his wife, Colleen, was negotiating their son’s contracts with the Aeros, Gordie just off the cuff asked “I wonder how much they’d pay for three Howes?” By this point it was the 1973-74 season and the wrist injury that had hindered him up until his retirement finally had a chance to fully heal. So all three Howes ended up with the Houston Aeros of the upstart WHA, which helped gain the league some stability. Once news broke that Gordie was going to play there, it was said that Bruce Norris (owner of the Red Wings at the time) tore down his pictures from the walls of the Olympia.



Mark Howe joining his dad, Gordie, in an alumni game



With a core of the Howe family, the Houston Aeros, along with Bobby Hull’s Winnipeg Jets, would be the class of the WHA. In the four years the Howes were there, they won back-to-back Avco Cups in 1974 and 1975. Gordie would also be named WHA MVP in 1974, where that trophy would be renamed the “Gordie Howe Trophy” the next year. Due to the team losing money over their time, the owner of the Aeros did not want to keep the team afloat in case of a potential merger with the NHL. So eventually the team traded all three Howes to the New England (later Hartford) Whalers. Gordie’s talent was beginning to diminish by this time and his playing time was reflecting this but stayed on with the team until after the WHA merged with the NHL in 1979. In that last year in the NHL, Gordie would nonetheless play in all 80 of the club’s games and get another 15 goals and 41 points to finish his career with 801 goals and 1,850 points, a seemingly unbreakable record (but not to Gretzky). By the time he fully retired, he was 52 years old, the oldest player to ever play in the NHL.

The thing that stood out about Mr. Hockey on the ice was never really the stats he put up, it was how he put them up. He didn’t revolutionize the game in the same ways that Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr did, he was just the picturesque hockey player that every coach dreams of having. He was big, strong and mean, had great hands, and his hockey IQ was off the charts. In that era, he was what was considered to be the perfect hockey player. As someone who isn’t old enough to have watched him play, the easiest way to judge his skill is to look at his statistics. As mentioned earlier, he won four Stanley Cups with the Red Wings (1950, 1952, 1954, 1955), he won the Hart Memorial Trophy six times (1952, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1963), awarded they Art Ross Trophy six times (1951-1954, 1957, 1963), was a First Team All-Star 12 times and a Second Team All-Star another 9. His career totals of 801 goals sits him second all-time to Wayne Gretzky (894) and his 1,850 points have only been exceeded by Mark Messier (1,887) and Wayne Gretzky (2,857) who played their careers in a much higher scoring era.



Gordie with the Holy Grail



If you ask those who watched Gordie play, they would tell you exactly how dominant he was. The way he’s was described was that you couldn’t take the puck off him, like he had glue on his stick. When Maurice Richard retired in 1960, he was quoted saying “Gordie could do everything”. Keep in mind back then it was very rare for players to praise anyone on the opposing team. Another example of this was when Harry Howell won the Norris Trophy in Bobby Orr’s rookie year where he said “I’m glad I won the award now because I expect it to belong to Bobby Orr from now on”. It shows you exactly how respected he was.

When I said that Gordie’s hockey IQ was off the charts, I mean he was one of the smartest players to play the game. He knew exactly how the game was coached and refereed at the time. That is why he could get away with as much as he did. Everyone who has followed hockey has heard about Gordie Howe’s elbows. You never wanted to annoy Gordie in a game because he had a very long memory, eventually there would be retribution. Since during that time there was only one referee and no instant replay, Gordie would control the game by policing it as he saw fit. Due to this, though I don’t think he would have understood this at the time, he knew the psychology of the game by using fear of retribution as a weapon to create space for him on the ice. In today’s game he couldn’t get away with it but back then, it was all fair game.

Off the ice, Gordie is known as being the most generous and classiest individual in hockey. One story that I can think of comes from Mark Howe’s book “Gordie Howe’s Son”. During Gordie’s time as a Red Wing, there was only one indoor Ice Hockey rink in Detroit, the Olympia. So he and his wife Colleen went out and built another rink for the city. If you think of it in terms of today’s NHLers, it isn’t a big deal as they make millions. However, as Mark pointed out to me in my interview with him, Gordie didn’t make $100,000 until near the end of his time in Detroit. This means that their project put a huge financial strain on their family, all undertaken to help out the community within Detroit. Another story also comes from LegendsOfHockey.net where Gordie saw a man snatch a purse in his time as a Houston Aero. He chased to thief for three blocks before he gave up the bag. When the woman asked how she could repay him, he just suggested going to some Houston Aeros games. She and her significant other became season ticket holders.

I only got to meet Gordie Howe once. It was at the NHL Awards in 2007, back when the awards were still done in Toronto. Gordie had just won a lifetime achievement award in hockey and was just about to go celebrate. The conversation was nothing special, it was more of a “Hi, how are you doing” type of deal. I’m still glad I have the opportunity to say that I met him though. As with most people Gordie’s age, the idea of mortality is not just something off in the distance, it is a reality. I really hope this isn’t the end for Gordie Howe as I think the Hockey World can still learn more from him. Most of all, I really he doesn’t end up as just a name in our history books. Throughout this article, I listed many -- but certainly not all -- of Gordie’s many accomplishments. In my mind I would say that Wayne Gretzky was the smartest player of all-time, Mario Lemieux had the most natural talent of all time, but Gordie Howe was the best overall talent of all time. Bobby Orr isn’t comparable in my opinion due to the position that he played. So when someone like Mark Howe says that Gordie Howe was a better person than a hockey player, I hope you understand the true meaning of that statement.

You can email me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @Kirshenblatt.
Join the Discussion: » 3 Comments » Post New Comment
More from Adam Kirshenblatt
» 2015 Hockey Hall of Fame Class
» HHOF Class of 2015 to be Announced Tomorrow
» HHOF Class of 2015 to be Announced Tomorrow
» Making the Case: Sergei Fedorov
» Making the Case: Chris Pronger