Read Mr. Hockey My Story Online
Authors: Gordie Howe
Mr. Hockey My Story
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Copyright © 2014 by Power Play International, Inc.
Foreword copyright © 2014 by Bobby Orr
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Photo credits:
2011 Hall of Fame Inductee Mark Howe with Gordie: Matthew Manor/Hockey Hall of Fame; Gordie Howe playing for Whalers: Lewis Portnoy/Hockey Hall of Fame; Gordie Howe injured on ice: Hockey Hall of Fame; Gordie Howe delivers elbow: CP PHOTO/Doug Ball; Gordie Howe shooting for Detroit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Gordie and the Stanley Cup–winning Red Wings: Courtesy of the Detroit Red Wings. All other images courtesy of the Howe family.
ISBN 978-0-698-18359-9
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.
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For Colleen, the love of my life, and for my children, Marty, Mark, Cathy and Murray
C
ONTENTS
F
OREWORD BY
B
OBBY
O
RR
M
any times over the years, I have been asked who I consider to be the greatest hockey player of all time. My answer has never changed—it is Gordie Howe. And so, being asked to write a foreword for Gordie Howe’s memoir is a great honor for me.
I’m not sure that younger generations of sports fans realize just how good Gordie Howe was as a hockey player. Certainly, people know he is one of the legends. I observed that firsthand when he attended a Canucks–Sharks game in 2013. When the TV cameras spotted him and put his face on the Jumbotron, the place erupted in a spontaneous standing ovation. Players from both teams stood at their respective benches, everyone reluctant to line up for the face-off. So, yes, there is a healthy respect for Number 9.
But I’m not just talking about being
one
of the greatest hockey players ever. I am talking about being
the
greatest player ever. Period.
Think of it this way: Today, if a player cracks the top five in scoring in the NHL, he’s considered a star. Do it a couple of years in a row and you’re a superstar. Alex Ovechkin did it once. Sidney Crosby has done it back-to-back twice. Steve Stamkos managed it four years in a row. You get the idea. You have to be a pretty good hockey player to make that list even once. Well, Gordie Howe did it
twenty years in a row
. That’s right—
twenty
. How do you begin to do justice to a legacy like that? Maybe we should compare him to the greats in other sports. When you look at golf and the way in which that game celebrates legends such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, you get a sense of what Gordie Howe means to hockey.
Gordie is a quiet and humble man. But I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with a more determined will to win. If you ever watched him in action during his career, you know that it’s hard to describe how he could dominate. We’re all taught to play with both hands on our stick. Gordie must have missed that day in hockey school, because he was happy playing with just one. When I came into the league, one thing I noticed after making the jump from junior was just how strong the guys were. And there was Gordie: stickhandling and passing with one hand and pushing the best players in the world off with the other hand. If Gordie wanted to hold on to the puck, there was pretty much no way you were going to get it.
Hockey fans often wonder what would have happened if Gordie had been in the lineup for the 1972 Summit Series against the Russians. The series came during his first retirement, but I would have liked to see what he did on the ice. Would the Russians have found a way to defend against him? No one in the NHL ever did. And when I say “ever,” I’m talking about more than twenty-five years. No doubt about it, Gordie would have made Canada a better team.
Coaches usually come up with a game plan to contain the stars on the other team, but there was really no way to contain Number 9 completely. That kind of coaching requires you to identify a weakness, and Gordie didn’t have one. What was there to exploit? He could play along the boards with the very best. He could dangle in open ice as well. Try to stand him up and he’d knock you down. Outmuscling him was never going to work. You could try to pressure him, but there was hardly a cooler passer in the game. How do you defend against all of that? One thing you didn’t want to do, though, was try to get under his skin. That approach can work against a lot of star-quality players. If you’re “the man,” guys are going to take liberties with you. Gordie was definitely the man, but after a while even the toughest guys in the league knew not to stir up the hornet’s nest. If you got under Gordie’s skin, you would soon wish you hadn’t. I say this as someone who once got his stick up a little too high on Mr. Hockey. Not long after what he considered to be a cheap shot, I found myself on my rear end with Gordie looking down at me, a very unfriendly expression on his face. When I asked him about it later, he showed another side of his personality—his sense of humor. “I’m a very religious player,” he said. “I think it’s much better to give than to receive.” Not too many guys made that mistake twice with Number 9.
We talk about the role of the “enforcer” in the game, but Gordie didn’t need one. He wasn’t just an elite talent, but was something of an enforcer himself. He would stick up for himself and his teammates. Gordie eventually had some teammates he took special care to protect. Playing with his sons Mark and Marty meant that a whole new generation of opponents had to learn to be careful around anyone with “Howe” on the back of his jersey. A father and two of his boys playing professional hockey at the same time on the same team . . . I wonder if that will ever happen again!
After I retired from the game, Gordie was still playing and doing it well enough to be voted onto All-Star teams. Here’s a little history for you: He played in his first All-Star Game in the year I was born. He retired and had been inducted into the Hall of Fame but then returned to the game, still producing nearly a point a game while playing in the NHL. In 1980, the All-Star Game was held in Detroit. Naturally, Gordie was chosen to represent Hartford that year. In many ways, he was a sentimental favorite. Incredibly, that was his twenty-third All-Star Game while playing in his fifth decade as a pro, an unheard of statistic. The average NHL career lasts about five years. And keep in mind that the
average
NHL player is a very good hockey player. That means that Gordie had greater than four times more All-Star seasons than most very good players have seasons, period.
Now, there he was, back in Detroit where he had started playing in the 1940s. The fans went crazy. One by one, players were introduced as they came onto the ice. As future Hall of Famers like Larry Robinson, Darryl Sittler, and Guy Lafleur came skating out, the announcer called out their names and the teams they were representing.
Then it was Gordie’s turn.
“From the Hartford Whalers, representing hockey with great distinction for five decades,
number 9
. . . ”
The announcer never got to say Gordie’s name. Everyone in Detroit knew who wore number 9. The fans at Joe Louis Arena were on their feet before the announcer had finished, and they remained standing while Gordie stood on the blue line. You could tell he wasn’t sure what to do. He would look up and the crowd would roar. Then he would look back down. He wasn’t comfortable being the center of attention. But the cheers went on and on. Then
the chant went up: “Gordie! Gordie!” Finally, after several minutes of this deafening roar, the officials were able to have the anthem played in order to start the game. By the way, at the age of fifty-one, Gordie had an assist in the game.
As I consider his wonderful career today, I realize that Gordie’s accomplishments are so impressive that it is almost impossible to understand them by comparing them to those of other players. You can’t say that he played like this guy or that guy, because there has never been anyone who played the total game in the way Gordie did. No one has ever combined strength, skill, determination, and longevity in the way Gordie did over all those years. No one captured the respect of players and the adoration of fans like Gordie did. And no one handled that level of fame and stardom with such genuine humility and graciousness. Even today, he still greets fans with the kind of warmth you just can’t fake. So you can’t talk about how great Gordie was as a hockey player without also mentioning what a great person he is.