Gordie: Part One

   All-time National Hockey League great, Gordie Howe, suffered a debilitating stroke recently. This unfortunate event brought on an outpouring of well-wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery, all directed Gordie's way.
   It also prompted those who remembered his playing days to share their fondest memories of a player who was simply known as "Mr. Hockey".

This about says it all!

   As someone who was born in the early fifties, the name "Gordie Howe" entered my consciousness before I was even really a hockey fan or understood clearly what hockey was all about or even how it was played.
   I am sure I can thank my father for this. I think he spoke about Gordie with a reverence normally reserved for saints and I think he did this constantly, in passing, and without even thinking about it. Because of this, Gordie Howe was the first hockey player I had ever heard of and, because of this again, "hockey" and "Howe" became synonymous for me.
   I think there was also something about the name "Gordie"---rather than the more formal "Gordon"--that helped reinforce his legend status. "Gordie" sounded more like the neighbourhood kid everyone knew, the kid everyone liked and remembered long after you'd moved away from that same neighbourhood. He was everybody's friend.
   By the time I was old enough to become an actual hockey fan, most of Gordie's best days were behind him. I never got to see him raise the Stanley Cup or win a scoring title. Thanks, though, to his utterly amazing longevity, I was able to see him play.
   

The man with the moves.

Gordie retired from the NHL in 1971 at the age of 43. Circuitously, after joining the newly-established World Hockey Association so that he might have the opportunity to play pro hockey with his sons and then having that league eventually merge with the NHL, Gordie found himself back in the NHL, now at the age of 51. At this time he was playing for the Hartford Whalers and I can clearly recollect watching the Whalers play the Leafs one Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada. At one point in the game, Gordie had the puck in the Leafs zone and a hapless Leaf defender skated right up to him, intent on relieving him of the puck. Gordie simply shifted through him, appearing on the other side, still with the puck. I think my jaw kind of dropped and I had one of those wow moments, not so much because I had never seen a similar play but because I'd never seen a guy in his fifties do it to a guy in his twenties! This then, became my favourite Howe story and one I fondly recalled as others were doing the same, in the wake of Gordie's recent illness.

Mr. Howe

   At this point, it's difficult to say how much longer Gordie Howe will be with us. The initial fears, after the stroke, seem to have somewhat subsided. Howe was always known as one of the toughest men in hockey and there was a bit of a consensus that if anyone might survive and, hopefully, at least partially recover, it might be him. So far, so good!