Gordie Howe Biography - A Childhood On The Canadian Prairie, Chronology, Awards And Accomplishments, Signs With The Red Wings
1928-
Canadian hockey player
Often called "Mr. Hockey," Gordie Howe is acknowledged as one of the best-ever all-around players in the history of the sport. Fast and powerful on the ice, with the ability to shoot the puck left- or right-handed, Howe set records during his career with the National Hockey League's (NHL) Detroit Red Wings that included most goals scored during the regular season, most winning goals scored, most seasons played, and most regular-season games played. The right-wing offenseman also scored the most career points (goals plus assists) for any player in his position. Howe burnished his own legend by coming out of retirement to play in the World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1973 alongside his sons, Marty and Mark. During his six seasons in the WHA with the Houston Aeros and New England Whalers, Howe helped to popularize hockey in the growing sports markets of the
Gordie Howe
American Sunbelt. He returned for one last season in the NHL when the Whalers became the Hartford Whalers, and retired as a professional athlete in 1980. In the decades since then, he has continued to promote an array of philanthropic efforts and manage his own business interests with his wife, Colleen. In 2002 Howe cut back on his public appearances to care for his wife, who had been diagnosed with Pick's Disease, a form of dementia that causes memory loss and behavioral changes.
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Born in the small farming town of Floral, Saskatchewan, Canada on March 31, 1928, Gordon Howe grew up in nearby Saskatoon with his eight brothers and sisters. His father, Albert Howe, had just given up a life of farming at the time of his son's birth and subsequently worked as a mechanic and construction worker, finally achieving the position of superintendent of maintenance for the City of…
Howe's hockey team at King George Community School won its league championship in 1941, 1942, and 1944. Howe was also a member of the team at the King George Athletic Club, a sports center set up for the youth of Saskatoon's West End. The team made it all the way to the finals of Saskatechewan's bantam league in 1942, where it lost to Regina. Based on the teams' winning…
The 1949-50 season was the first standout season of Howe's career. The Production Line of Lindsay, Abel, and Howe went one-two-three in that year's total points standings and the Red Wings made it to the championship against the New York Rangers. The finals produced a four-to-three games victory for the Wings, the team's first title in seven years. Unfortunately, Howe was not …
At the end of the 1970-71 season, Howe announced that he was retiring from the Red Wings after twenty-five seasons. Honored with the Order of Canada by his homeland's government in 1971, he was inducted into the International Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972. Although Howe planned on entering the management ranks of the Red Wings, the arrangement turned out badly, in part because of tensions bet…
Colleen Joffa was born in 1933 and spent part of her childhood in Sandusky, Michigan. After her parents' divorce, she moved with her mother and stepfather to Detroit, where she completed high school. She was working as a secretary at Bethlehem Steel when she first met Gordie Howe at the Lucky Strike bowling lanes on Grand River Avenue in Detroit in 1951. The couple dated for two years and m…
Enjoying his second retirement since 1980, Howe returned to play a game in 1997 with the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League. Although he played for less than a minute, Howe scored a goal and became the first hockey player to have played a game in each of six decades. Howe was sixty-nine years old at the time of his final professional hockey game. From their home in the Detroit subur…
Gordie and Colleen Howe had developed numerous business interests during his athletic career, but the couple was more often in the public eye for their philanthropic work. In honor of her husband's sixty-fifth birthday in 1993, Colleen Howe arranged a sixty-five city fundraising tour for a variety of charities, including the Howe Foundation and Howe Center for Youth Hockey Development. The …
Although most of Howe's NHL records have been broken—most famously, his all-time points record fell to Wayne Gretzky in 1989—his status as one of the sport's best-ever players is unquestioned. Twenty years after his final retirement as a player, Howe also remains one of the most respected figures in any sport for his professionalism on the ice and his unassuming demeano…
Diamond, Dan, ed. Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Hockey League. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1998. Macskimming, Roy. Gordie: A Hockey Legend. Vancouver: GreyStone Books, 1994. McFarlane, Brian. The Red Wings. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1998. Green, Jerry. "Gordie Talks for First Time About Colleen's Dementia." Detroit News (September 26, …
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