31 Replies to “RIP, Mr Hockey”

  2. I met Gordie in the 70’s when his two sons, Mark and Marty, were playing for the Junior Red Wings and my brother played for the St. Thomas Elgins.
    Mr. Hockey was at the game in St. Thomas and joked with fans that he was the highest paid water-boy in the junior league.
    He tousled my hair as we posed for a picture and was simply an all around nice guy, warm and gracious (until you hack him). I recall him having time for any and all fans.
    The world has lost a great one.

  4. Where’s his helmet, face guard, and mouth protector ? And … is that a WOODEN stick ? With a WOODEN blade ? So long Gordie, and an era when men were men, and the chrome was thick !

  5. I was named after him in 1955. Any Gordon you ever meet is about 60
    My dad and him shared a birthday

  6. Gordie Howe! The Legend
    As great an ambassador for the game of hockey as he was a player on the ice.
    I recall a conversation I had with my coach who played his one and only NHL game with Detroit where he had both shoulders separated in that game and had to have a pin to keep his shoulder together, ending his NHL career. He said that Gordie was amazing at utilizing his ability to knock other players off balance to get the advantage. It took numerous views of tape footage from a game to realize how he tapped the skate of a player as they skated side-by-side, knocking him to the ice. They didn’t realize he had actually initiated the fall. Those tricks are who he was and made for a great entertainer on the ice.
    Might also have a lot to do with him having to duke it out on more than one occasion.
    The Gordie Howe Hat Trick is also a part of the legend.
    Thank you Gordie for using your talents to inspire many young men to pursue their dreams of hoisting the Stanely Cup like you did so many times.
    RIP

  7. Rest in peace Gordie Howe. You were a great good person and a great ambassador for the game of hockey and for Saskatchewan.

  8. RIP Mr. Hockey.
    I met Gordie Howe at the ’74 WHA series in Moscow. Standing next to Bobby Hull he seemed ultra quiet but a super nice guy. Huge hands! Full cred to Hull as well who remembered coming to my home town in ’68 for a Sportsman’s dinner to raise funds for a new arena.
    The highlight for my ’74 WHA series was a shift where a Russian took Marty Howe into the boards. As he turned away from the play Gordie came in and buried his elbow in to this guys throat. The Russian dropped and when he got up he was circled by 3 Howes ready to go. I wasn’t that far up in the stands and had a superior look at that play. A thing of beauty.

  9. When you hear words like gentleman, ambassador, great, humble applied to Howe you realize just what they are supposed to mean and how they are often misapplied to others.
    Truly a man of great character.

  10. thank you all for sharing your Gordie stories. we are reminded of our finite timeline.

  12. The greatest athlete of our era:
    “Howe hit 40-plus goals five times with Detroit and notched a career-high 103 points in 1968-69, partnered with Alex Delvecchio and Frank Mahovlich. From 1949 to 1971, he never scored fewer than 23 goals per season. At 41, he had 44 goals for Detroit.”
    At 46, he earned WHA MVP honours with a 31-goal, 100-point campaign for the Houston Aeros. And at 52, still as robust as he was respected, he had 41 points in 80 games that final NHL season with Hartford.”
    In 70 game seasons. Who can better that, in any sport?
    http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/gordie-howe-1.3628425

  13. http://thehockeywriters.com/gordie-howe/
    Good writeup on the guy I consider the best to ever play the game.Saw him live only once,the year after he retired at a charity game. He amazed the crowd by skating in with the puck ,only one hand on the stick,the other arm holding off another recently retired player,Chris Oddleifson, from the blue line in. Howe fired the puck over the goalie into the top of the net with one hand.The crowd gave him a standing ovation.
    Bobby Hull, also on the ice yelled out to us,”and THAT’s why I say he’s the greatest player in the game”!
    RIP,Gordie. Thank you for all those great memories.

  14. Met Mr. Hockey in person at a grocery store in Traverse City, Michigan about 20 years ago. Everyone in the store was asking for his autograph and he obliged all…including myself. You could tell he knew how much he meant to people. He also exuded dignity and class.
    RIP Mr. Howe

  15. To look at this through a political lens:
    Are any of you listening to the CBC radio report of Gordie Howe’s death? Call me paranoid, but it’s like they are framing his playing style to compare him to Trudeau. The report started with the PM saying he was a great guy but also a though guy, the ideal Canadian, who used his elbows when he needed to. Then at the tail end, the reporter stressed these same points again: “he used his elbows when he needed to get things done.”
    I know Howe was a physical, old time hockey player, but really? In a two minute report the thing you’re going to stress most are his flying elbows that got the opposition out of the way?

  16. I was never going to be a remarkable hockey player but I loved to play. That was partly because as a kid who loved to read, when I started playing I read his book (Hockey … Here’s Howe.) It helped me to play better and made the game more fun because I better understood what I was supposed to be doing on the ice. Whenever I could, I tried to wear No. 9.

  19. yup, Mr Elbows Howe was, and one of the greatest sports characters ever. If only our politicians were half the man he was!

  20. I watched the Detroit Red Wimgs defeat the Montreal Canadians in the Forum 7-1in early 1963. I was allowed into the Forum probably because I was in the uniform of the Royal Canadian Navy, given the Molson Family soft spot for the military. I watched the truly greats of the sport, Jean Bellivue, Jacques Plante, Alex Dellvechio and of course GORDIE HOWE. It was my last and only watching professional hockey live.
    R.IP. GORDIE HOWE

  22. Rest? Right now he’s playing shinny with Clarence Campbell, Maurice Richard, and Jesus.

  23. RIP Gordie Howe!! I still remember the cold January nights at the local bar when Howe and the Rocket were battling on the black and white screen of the Zenith ”demo” from the local TV shop.Those were the days!!
    A song in memory of the greats!
    https://youtu.be/6xrt1LpeeYs

  24. Love that photo of Mr. Hockey Gordie Howe, taken back when Hockey was a mans game and not the excruciatingly boring metro sexual American college hockey garbage the NHL plays today. RIP.

  26. Canada’s Babe Ruth is gone but will never be forgotten. I watched him play in the 1950’s and cant’ believe how long he played. Will never happen again – 5 decades – are you kidding me?

  29. Howe was a fitting representative of what Canada used to be: hard-working, tough, smart, and a gentleman.
    To think that our population now worships a tit like turdp la doo.

  30. Never in my life did I ever think I would see Bobby Hull openly weeping on national television. Is there anyone who didn’t love Mr. Hockey?

  31. About 20 years ago, a Detroit radio station used to hold regular on-air hockey trivia contests to win prizes, but the funny part was that the answer to the question was always “Gordie Howe”. And they never seemed to run out of questions for which that was the answer.
    How about one more: This was Canada’s greatest export?

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