Gordie Howe

Remembering Gordie Howe

• Report rights infringement
• published: 28 Jun 2016
• views: 3

Mr. Hockey THE GREATEST PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAME Gordie Howe is widely acknowledged as the greatest hockey player in NHL history. A stalwart for the Detroit Red Wings for over two decades, he not only set most of the league scoring records but he was acknowledged as the toughest player in the league as well. In his forties and fifties, he played in the WHA with his sons Mark and Marty, and was still one of the sport’s dominant players. He played in a minor league game when he was 69 making him the only player to play professionally in six decades. After retiring, he became a spokesman for hockey, revered by the fans and respected by the players. There was literally no one ever in hockey like Gordie Howe. Howe's name and nickname, "Mr. Hockey", as well as his late wife's nickname as "Mrs. Hockey", are registered trademarks.[27] Howe was also referred to during his career as Power,[28] Mr. Everything, Mr. All-Star, The Most, The Great Gordie, The King of Hockey, The Legend, The Man, No. 9,[29] and "Mr. Elbows" (for his tough physical play). Howe was widely considered the most complete player in all of hockey history.[2] Once Howe began dominating the league, NHL scouts were given new directives to discover players that played the way he did. Howe's strength, scoring ability, and speed exemplified the perfect example of the modern-day role of a power forward and someone who can play the 200-foot game.Howe's brawn and physical play inspired the coining of "The Gordie Howe Hat Trick" — a goal, an assist and a fight — which is now a standard part of hockey's vocabulary.[30] Ironically, Howe himself only achieved his namesake hat trick twice in his long career, because few players dared to fight him after Howe soundly defeated New York Rangers enforcer Lou Fontinato at Madison Square Garden in 1959.[30] However, Howe was known for being a well-mannered and trusting person off the ice who never questioned the salary the Detroit Red Wings owners paid home. When it became public knowledge that Howe had scored more than 600 goals for the organization before it deigned to pay him over $40, 000, his linemate, Ted Lindsay, began a campaign to establish a player's association to unite for fair wages against the NHL owners. This would be the nucleus of the movement that became the National Hockey League Players' Association.Howe's time playing with the World Hockey Association with his sons allowed the fledgling professional league to gain much needed legitimacy and the ability to fill stadiums. The increased competition for hockey talent forced the insular NHL to seek players beyond its traditional North American sources and recruit professional European players and to expand into new cities to gain new fans.[30] One of the players who elected to go to the WHA instead of the NHL, and over the years Howe became good friends with Gretzky, who had idolized him as a young player and who would later break many of Howe's scoring records and milestones.[30][3] While Gretzky surpassed Howe statistically, it was Howe who had first set the standard for consistent, high-level play. Another milestone was reached in 1997 when Howe played professional hockey in a sixth decade. He was signed to a one-game contract by the Detroit Vipers of the IHL and, at 69 years old, made a return to the ice for one shift.[5][31] In doing so, he became the only player in hockey history to compete in six different decades at the professional level, having played in the NHL, WHA and IHL from the 1940s to 1990s.Howe's #9 banner hanging in Joe Louis Arena. Howe's first 20 seasons came during an era when the schedule was only 70 games, scoring was difficult, and checking was tight; he never scored 50 goals in a single season. Despite that Howe is currently 4th on the NHL's all-time points list with 1850 total points 801 goals, and 1049 assists, after Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Jaromír Jágr.[2] Howe is still 2nd on the all-time goals list,with only Gretzky ahead of him.[2] When career regular season goals from both the NHL and the WHA are combined, he ranks first in goals with 975, ahead of Gretzky's 940.[33] At the time of his retirement, Howe's professional totals, including playoffs, for the NHL and WHA combined, were first. He finished with 2,421 games played, 1,071 goals, 1,518 assists, and 2,589 points. Later on, however, Wayne Gretzky would pass him in goals (1,072), assists (2,297), and points (3,369), but not in games played or games played with one team.[34][35] After Howe's death, Gretzky called Howe "the greatest hockey player ever."[2]