Mr. Hockey My Story

by Gordie Howe

  Some people, including Irvin, suggested that the reason we lost to Boston in the playoffs that year was because I was too tired from chasing the Rocket’s record during the regular season. I don’t really buy into that line of thinking. I might have taken a few more shifts, but for the most part I was just playing hockey as usual. I was still only twenty-five years old at that point, and my body recovered pretty quickly. Physically, I don’t remember running out of steam against the Bruins. Mentally, I can’t say that I recall the pressure being too hard to handle either. The chase for 50 goals that season certainly wasn’t anything compared to the pressure I felt in 1963 when I was closing in on the Rocket’s career total of 544. That was definitely more of a grind. Sometimes there’s just no convenient explanation for why teams lose. I still think we had a great squad in 1953. Rather than trying to figure out why we lost, credit should really go to Boston for beating us. Unfortunately for the Bruins, they couldn’t keep it going in the next round. They ended up losing to the Canadiens in five games. It was Montreal’s third straight appearance in the finals, but their first Stanley Cup since 1946. We knew they’d be tough to beat in the following season. Then again, we knew we would be, too.

  Seven

  MY MOST IMPORTANT TEAM

  Growing up, if hockey wasn’t my sole focus at any given time, it was close. It was a way of life for me from as far back as I can remember. As I kid, I can recall sitting at the kitchen table and writing out different signatures to try to figure out the best one to use once I became famous. When I finished, I tugged on the hem of my mom’s skirt and asked her to pick a favorite. She humored me and chose one with big loops on the “G” and the “H.” To this day, it’s the one I still use whenever I sign my name. Even as a fanciful child, though, I wasn’t interested in the perks of fame. I just figured that if I was going to play hockey for a living, I’d need a serviceable autograph. At sixteen, when the Red Wings wanted me to move to Galt to play on the practice squad, I said yes because I knew it would make me a better hockey player. I didn’t particularly want to leave my friends and family in Saskatoon, but when hockey called, I always listened. For more than twenty years I was content to let hockey guide nearly all of my decisions. It was that way right up until the moment I met Colleen.

  At some point, I suppose it happens to most everyone. Or at least it does if you’re lucky. You’re ticking along worrying only about yourself until one day you wake up and something’s different. One minute it was just you, and then suddenly all of your decisions are being made for two. The funny thing is how seamlessly this change comes about. Once I met Colleen, everything just sort of clicked into place. I’ll tell anyone who will listen that marrying her was the smartest thing I ever did. I wouldn’t say that hockey took a back seat to our marriage—that would be Jack Adams talking—but for the first time in my life I wanted to make room for something besides the game. As if that wasn’t enough, not long after we were hitched, Colleen and I had to start thinking for three. Our first child, Marty, was born on February 18, 1954. We named him after Marty Pavelich. There was no way to know it beforehand, but once Marty came along I realized I was born to be a family man. I’d guess that fathers from the beginning of time have been saying the same thing. Of course, most fathers don’t have a boss like Jack Adams. Trying to raise a family on his watch was easier said than done.

  As much as I wanted to be there when our son was born, babies don’t care about clocks, calendars, or hockey schedules. The night Marty arrived, the Red Wings were on the road in Montreal. A bunch of smiling teammates gave me the news between periods. I gladly accepted the handshakes and “attaboys,” knowing full well that Colleen had done all of the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, the Canadiens didn’t feel like cooperating with what was otherwise a banner night for the Howe family. The headline in the next morning’s paper read: howes have baby; red wings lose. I didn’t mind it so much, but Colleen thought the story implied that we’d lost because I was more focused on our baby than the game. Jack Adams, true to form, did his part to worsen her mood. The day Colleen and Marty were set to be released from the hospital coincided with the end of our road trip. I couldn’t wait to kiss my wife and meet my new baby boy, but unbeknownst to us, Mr. Adams had his own backward ideas. He called our doctor, Jim Matthews, and asked if Colleen could be kept in the hospital for one more day. Mr. Adams was afraid my mind wouldn’t be on that night’s game if Colleen and the baby came home. Jim, of course, was a doctor not a hockey player, and he had no problem telling Mr. Adams to go to hell. Still, the full Jack Adams experience wasn’t lost on Colleen.

  The team’s attitude toward wives never sat well with Colleen, and quite rightly so. Mr. Adams wanted a player’s mind to be on hockey, full stop. Wives were to be kept separate, just like a player’s religious beliefs. The club assumed that players had them, but they didn’t want to know about it. Mr. Adams didn’t want us to have any outside interests—family, business, or otherwise—that would distract us from the game. It was a ridiculous stance, but he took it seriously. What’s more, he even tried to regulate our sex lives. Given his way, players would have sex only in the off-season. He’d routinely come into the locker room and tell us to keep it in our pants. In his mind, having sex was like losing a pint of blood. It hurt your stamina on the ice and took away the jump in your legs. After one loss, I remember him getting so angry that he told a young newlywed that his play was suffering because he was spending too much time in the crease at home. That one had us cracking up behind our gloves, but Mr. Adams was dead serious. As I said, he could be a ridiculous man. It’s hard to imagine a coach trying to get away with anything close to that now, but this was the 1950s and that was Jack Adams.

  • • •

  The 1953–54 season was one of the rare times when Mr. Adams resisted the urge to make any major changes to the roster. He did make a few tweaks, however, most notably reaching down to the farm system and promoting Earl “Dutch” Reibel. With Dutch in the fold, Tommy Ivan decided to shift him into Alex Delvecchio’s spot on the Production Line, putting Alex between Metro Prystai and Johnny Wilson. The move seemed to work. We finished on top of the standings for a sixth consecutive year, with 88 points. Montreal racked up 81, which was good for second place, followed by Toronto with 78. In his second year behind the bench for the hapless Black Hawks, poor Sid Abel finished in the cellar with only 12 wins and 31 points. Along with the Canadiens, we were clearly the class of the league. Between our two teams, we had the top seven point getters in the NHL. I claimed the Art Ross Trophy with 81 points, 14 clear of the Rocket, while Ted Lindsay came in third, followed by Bernie “Boom-Boom” Geoffrion, Bert Olmstead, Red Kelly, and Dutch Reibel. Ted, Red, and I were also First Team All-Stars, while Sawchuk made the Second Team. Doug Harvey, Ken Mosdell, and the Rocket made the All-Star Team for the Canadiens. With that much firepower clustered between our teams, it wasn’t a surprise when we ended up squaring off for the Stanley Cup. Both semifinals went quickly. Montreal swept Boston while we put away Toronto in five games.

  As I have already said, the Red Wings didn’t like the Canadiens and they didn’t like us. By 1954, Montreal’s playoff roster contained the core of their team for years to come. The Rocket, Geoffrion, Olmstead, Mosdell, Harvey, Jean Béliveau, and Jacques Plante were all contributing on a nightly basis. We respected their talent, but that’s where any semblance of fondness ended. The feelings went both ways. If you were walking toward the Rocket, he’d cross the street just to avoid talking to the enemy. During a playoff series or when the league scheduled a home-and-home, the teams would sometimes find themselves on the same train. Those trips could get tense. I don’t think any fights ever broke out, but it came close. The conductor tried to keep the peace by scheduling us in the club car at different times, to keep as much distance between us as possible. Whoever coined the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” could have been talking about the NHL during the six-team era. Between the regular season and the playoffs, we faced each
other so often that hostility really had time to take root. And, boy, did it ever. Up and down both rosters, players had scores to settle with guys on the other bench. I wouldn’t say we hated the Canadiens (except for Ted Lindsay; he probably did), but we sure harbored a healthy dislike for them.

  The opening game of the series went according to plan. Pulling a rabbit out of his bag of coaching tricks, Tommy decided to move Delvecchio back to the Production Line. Playing with Alex felt like slipping on an old shoe. The team didn’t miss a beat and we took the first game 3–1. Montreal won the second game, and then we came back to take the next two at the Forum. Up 3–1 in the series, we had the Habs on the ropes. Trying to find a spark, Dick Irvin benched Jacques Plante for Gerry McNeil. He hadn’t seen much action in a while, but he was so sharp you couldn’t tell. He turned out to be the edge the Habs needed and they took the next two, to even the series at three games apiece.

  Game seven was exactly how you dream it will be when you’re a little kid. The Olympia was packed. Nerves were running high in the dressing room and guys were keyed up to play. The game didn’t disappoint once the puck dropped. Throughout the series, Tommy had assigned little Tony Leswick to check the Rocket. I can only imagine how much Maurice must have hated it. Tony might have been small, but he was strong on his skates and as tough as nails. He was also a player, made from the same mold as an Esa Tikkanen, who lived to get under your skin. I’d experienced the treatment firsthand when Tony was a Ranger. Not only did he become the Rocket’s shadow that night, but he also chirped at him for the whole game. He called him Richard, using the English pronunciation. Richard this and Richard that, and “Hey, Richard, you’re not going to score tonight.” Some guys have a special switch in their heads that lets them be like that. They aren’t fun to play against, but they’re good to have on your side. I think it’s the reason why Mr. Adams traded for Tony in the first place. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

  At the end of regulation time, we were tied at 1–1. Overtime was only fitting for such a hard-fought series. Given all of the offensive talent on both benches, the Cup-winning goal came from an unlikely source. Doug Harvey had just cleared the puck when Leswick hopped over the boards on a line change in the second overtime. When he hit the ice, the puck was right there—and so was the Rocket, who had Tony lined up for a big hit. Tony, who didn’t exactly have a cannon for a shot, flipped one toward the net as he tried to duck the Rocket’s check. The puck was floating through the air so slowly that Harvey later said he could read the label on it as it came toward him. Doug was a great athlete. He’d played Double A baseball and probably could have made the big league if it wasn’t for hockey. He moved to knock the puck out of the air and drop it on his stick, but it must have been knuckling a bit and he misjudged it. Instead of fielding it cleanly, he deflected it off the side of his glove. In net, Gerry McNeil was in position to make a routine save, but Harvey changed the puck’s angle just enough that it floated past McNeil for the game-winner. The whole building was stunned: the crowd, both teams, Tony, Doug, and especially Gerry. It was our third Stanley Cup in five years and the second time we’d beat the Canadiens in the finals. And, of all people, we had little Tony Leswick to thank for it. Who would have thought?

  • • •

  When Jack Adams ended my baseball career a few years earlier, I didn’t think there’d ever come a time when I didn’t miss it during the summer. Wouldn’t you know it, having a family changed all that. Instead of going back to Saskatoon that summer, Colleen and I were kept occupied by our new baby boy in Detroit. As busy as we were with Marty, however, I still managed to find some time to sneak away for a bit of an off-season baseball fix. Back then, a lot of the professional athletes in Detroit knew each other. I became so friendly with some of the Tigers that they’d invite me out for batting practice. One time, I remember that Don Lund was hanging some fat pitches out over the plate during BP, and I turned some heads by sending a few into the upper deck of old Briggs Stadium. The left-field stands where those balls landed were known as Greenberg Gardens, named after the legendary Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg, who deposited his share of balls up there. I like to think that a few of the pitches I hit were for all of the good baseball players in Saskatchewan who never got a chance to take a cut in a big league park. That same day, I also met Al Kaline for the first time. The guys called me over and told me to watch the kid in right field. After catching a fungo, this whip of a kid would fire a picture-perfect one-hopper back to the catcher every time. He ran like an antelope and had such a beautiful throwing motion that it was easy to see he was something special. Al’s talent was so great that I remember feeling a bit nervous when we were introduced, even though I was older and an established veteran in my own sport. We ended up becoming pretty good friends. Al, it should be mentioned, went on to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

  A few years later, I actually went into business with Al, but unfortunately it was a short-lived partnership. Detroit’s auto industry was booming and Lindsay, Pavelich, and I formed a company with a local businessman to sell parts. My growing family could use every extra dollar we could get, and I thought the idea had good potential. Ted and Marty eventually broadened their interests into manufacturing, which is when I brought Al into the arrangement. Our outside business interests didn’t sit well with Jack Adams, however. Articles that suggested we were paying more attention to our bank accounts than to hockey started popping up in the local paper. The accusation was ridiculous. Not only were we hockey players first and foremost but also we weren’t pulling any money out of the business. That Mr. Adams would plant such stories and also have the nerve to take us to task through the press set Colleen’s teeth on edge. Without telling me what they were up to, she and Pat Lindsay decided that since they were so rich, they might as well dress the part. They raided their Monopoly sets for fake bills, borrowed some mink stoles, and turned up at the next home game dressed as high rollers. The local photographers caught them lighting cigarettes with their Monopoly money and ran the photos the next day with a cutline that said, “Wives Pan Adams’ Comments.” I don’t think Mr. Adams ever forgave Colleen for that stunt. He was furious. The hassle that resulted from ticking off management eventually became too much and I decided to sell my stake in the business. I knew it wasn’t the best move financially, but it did improve my life at the arena, which was worth something.

  • • •

  I would have liked to buy Colleen a fur coat of her own, but money was still a bit too tight. We were hardly living hand-to-mouth, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of extra cash to splash around either. Around 1950 or ’51, I had managed to save enough to buy my parents a new house in Saskatoon. My folks never had much, so to be able to do that for them was one of the great joys of making it to the NHL. I was at that house a few years later for a barbecue when my dad looked at me and asked, “What in the hell is the world coming to? We used to cook indoors and go to the bathroom outdoors.” My dad could be really funny. Unfortunately, along with his sense of humor he also had a stubborn side. When I asked him to put the house in my name so I could pay the taxes and then write them off as a deduction, Dad’s pride wouldn’t let him do it. The old mule. When I gave my folks money, I always went through Mum and told her to keep it under her hat. I wish I could have sent them even more than I did in those years, but after Mark arrived in May 1955 we didn’t have much to spare. Raising two kids meant we really had to keep track of our dollars and cents. Colleen made a household budget and we stuck to it like gospel.

  A luxury that Colleen would have loved was a second car, but our financial situation kept us a one-vehicle family for many years. Another car would have made her life a lot easier. Being married to an NHL player had its perks, but I’m sure it was also a challenge. Not only were we on the road during the season, but we’d disappear for training camp and again in the spring during playoffs. In the fall of 1955, Colleen found herself with a toddler, a new baby, no car, and a husband away at t
raining camp in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Looking back at her letters from that time makes it easy to appreciate how much of the family business she handled so I could concentrate on hockey.

  September 13, 1955

  Hi Honey—

  Phoned the AAA and Kotcher a while ago and here’s the news. The AAA said to be sure to get a bill for the temporary repairs on the car from the Sault dealer so they can reimburse us for the money or pay it if you haven’t already. Mr. Kotcher said he would give us these deals:

  On a ’55 Convertible

  $3,900 minus $1000 for our car

  $2,900 full price

  On a ’55 88 Deluxe

  $3,650 minus $850 for our car

  $2,800 full price

  On a ’55 Ninety-eight

  $4,100 minus $1200 for our car

  $2,900 full price

  What do those prices sound like? That’s quite a bit of money! Should we wait for a ’56 or not? I think so! This means, of course, we don’t pay off the house, but it should only take us to next winter. But that should be all right. Miss you lots, Honey, and time seems to drag when you’re gone. The kids are good so far and I have no kick coming. Hope you’re not too sore from skating. Call me at the end of the week when you decide what you’d like to do. A ’98 hardtop would be real nice. What do you think?

  Bye for now. Hugs and kisses from your three babies.

  I love you, Colleen

  P.S. Mark is 19 pounds.

  September 15, 1955

  Hello honey—

  Thought I’d drop you a note to remind you that you have three folks back here in Detroit who are very lonesome for you. One is asleep, the other on my lap bugging me and the last one is writing this letter.