RIP Gordie Howe

[TheSportsPredictor]

Word coming out:

Gordie Howe Dies, Red Wings Confirm

 

[cranberry]

I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time sitting and chatting (and learning about hockey) with Gordie during the Whalers' morning skates at the Hartford Civic Center in the mid-'80s. Wonderful warm guy and a great story teller. RIP.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time sitting and chatting (and learning about hockey) with Gordie during the Whalers' morning skates at the Hartford Civic Center in the mid-'80s. Wonderful warm guy and a great story teller. RIP.

Dude, he did that same routine for everyone.

 

[Songbird]

Dude, he did that same routine for everyone.

I want just one person to say Gordie did them a magic trick.

 

[YankeeFan]

Hey, I loved Gordie Howe.

 

[Songbird]

Well, he did turn himself in a sniveling little whiner once.

 

[Songbird]

Fun and games aside, too young to have watched him. Maybe SJ oldies can talk about his magical ways. Was he fast? Deft with the stick? Best wrister ever? What was the essence of his game?

 

[cranberry]

Dude, he did that same routine for everyone.

I haven't even mentioned the elevator rides up to the press box.

 

[Vombatus]

From the great days of not wearing a helmet. RIP.

 

[CD Boogie]

He lives on thanks to the Gordie Howe hat trick - a goal, an assist and a fight in a game.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Similar to the "Gordie Howe Hat Trick". ... when your nickname was "Mr. Hockey," it's a pretty safe bet you were an all-timer. RIP.

 

[Batman]

I remember playing Trivial Pursuit with my dad and sister while growing up in the 1980s, before Gretzky broke all of his scoring records and long before I had even an educated guess about anything involving the history of the sport. Whenever a hockey question came up in the sports category, a safe strategy was to answer "Gordie Howe." It was right about 90 percent of the time.

 

[Rainman]

He was a tough SOB

 

[Gator]

Rough week for sports icons, especially if you grew up in the 1960s (I did not).

 

[KJIM]

RIP. This makes me so sad. I only met him briefly in the Red Wings press box a couple of times. Great stories, classy to everyone. Amazing ambassador of the sport. Now Mr. and Mrs. Hockey are together again.

I'll add a little story: When I was working with a local hockey publication, we covered a big fund-raiser. Cancer, maybe? I don't even remember. Hockey has Heart. One of the big items for the silent auction was an hour skate with Mr. Hockey, at the Colleen Howe rink, I think it was.

They had a lot of good stuff to auction, but that was pretty cool. I asked how they got it donated. He'd heard about the event, picked up the phone, called them and offered.

 

[LongTimeListener]

51 years old (turned 52 before the season ended) and a fully functioning NHL player. I knew he did that, but not until I looked it up many years ago did I realize that he was actually a player, not a gimmick. (80 games, 15 goals, 26 assists, +9) That has to be the greatest age/longevity feat in sports.

I don't claim much hockey knowledge. Typical American, life began with Gretzky. So to the Canuckistanis (and others) ... is there some truth here, or is it the equivalent of refusing to believe anyone might have been better than Chamberlain/Jordan/whoever?

Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay on Gordie Howe: "He's the greatest hockey player who ever lived. That includes all of them."

 

[Spartan Squad]

 

[Batman]

51 years old (turned 52 before the season ended) and a fully functioning NHL player. I knew he did that, but not until I looked it up many years ago did I realize that he was actually a player, not a gimmick. (80 games, 15 goals, 26 assists, +9) That has to be the greatest age/longevity feat in sports.

I don't claim much hockey knowledge. Typical American, life began with Gretzky. So to the Canuckistanis (and others) ... is there some truth here, or is it the equivalent of refusing to believe anyone might have been better than Chamberlain/Jordan/whoever?

Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay on Gordie Howe: "He's the greatest hockey player who ever lived. That includes all of them."

I'm not a huge puckhead, but I'm going to say he was really that damn good.
Consider it this way. He and Gretzky are the only two players ever to score more than 800 goals. The only two players with a remote chance of getting there are Jaromir Jagr (749, and he seems to be as eternal as Howe was) and Alex Ovechkin (525, so with another decade he could get there).
Throw in his reputation as an all-around player and tough guy, and his longevity and productivity across two or three eras of hockey, and I think it's one case where the legend and the reality happily exist side by side.

 

[Steak Snabler]

51 years old (turned 52 before the season ended) and a fully functioning NHL player. I knew he did that, but not until I looked it up many years ago did I realize that he was actually a player, not a gimmick. (80 games, 15 goals, 26 assists, +9) That has to be the greatest age/longevity feat in sports.

I don't claim much hockey knowledge. Typical American, life began with Gretzky. So to the Canuckistanis (and others) ... is there some truth here, or is it the equivalent of refusing to believe anyone might have been better than Chamberlain/Jordan/whoever?

Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay on Gordie Howe: "He's the greatest hockey player who ever lived. That includes all of them."

Some people would argue Bobby Orr was the greatest ever, at least before his knee injuries.

 

[mateen]

As I read in one of the obituaries I saw, it says something about what a fundamentally decent man he must have been off the ice that most of his contemporaries seemed to have really liked him as a person even though he cost them dearly by his refusal to go along with Ted Lindsay and others in their early attempts to unionize. When the best player in the league can be bought off if the owner throws in a new jacket along with his lowball contract offer, as allegedly happened with Howe, it doesn't really do a lot to push up salaries for the rest of the league.