The Gruesome Twosome

A Young Gordie Howe in his Prime

Yikes!

If you played hockey and wondered if you were ever good enough to play at the game's highest level ... how do you think you could play against a guy with a body like that ... it might be equally difficult to play with a guy who had a body like that and think you were equal to his level of play -- he had muscles on muscles

I have a friend who was given that opportunity. I can't imagine how excited he must have been.

He was a Marlie, a Toronto boy drafted by the Original Six Red Wings. 

He went to training camp in the 1940s - barely still a teenager. He was on the ice for the afternoon drills with the hopefuls. The morning group, made up of the starting lineup, used the other changing room but shared the same showers.

My buddy walked into the bathroom/shower room and he looked at the guy taking a shower through the mist ...it was Gordie ... on full display ...with that farmboy physique.

He said, "seeing that body was enough for me ... I realized I didn't belong in the NHL".

My buddy moved on to the Los Angeles Monarchs of the PCL and had an interesting minor-league hockey career. He also played baseball for the minor league team owned by the Dodgers ... then went to England for a year and played with the London Lions. He was a very good multi-sport athlete who sorta made something out of nothing.

But, the photo above made me wonder ... how many other potential NHL careers dissolved before they got started after seeing a similar photo of Howe without a shirt.

Many say Gordie was the best that ever played -- both Orr and Gretzky agree. 



This is the official sketch of Gordie from the HHOF. All of the inductee's pictures were created mechanically so they would all look the same. My copy is personalized. Look at his penmanship.  
          

It's an artist's quality. He took time to write his message and it's readable. Funny thing about the old guys like Howe and "Rocket" and "Boom Boom" and Bower and Orr and Keon and Kennedy and Beliveau. They thought their signature was important and worth more to them than just a scribble like today's "superstars"

Gordie Howe did the impossible ... playing professional hockey for 6 decades while scoring more than a point a game for 2421 games. Incidentally, he was ambidextrous - that wasn't a myth.  He could shoot with power and score on your goalie from the left or right side with his straight-blade stick and, he often switched his stick from one side to the other while in motion bearing down on an unsuspecting target. With all the skills of today's NHL players, have you ever even heard about a player who could do that?

However, it's a team sport and he had a very unusual, very determined, very violent player who roamed his left wing for 13 years and 4 Stanley Cup Championships in Detroit. He wasn't Gordie's bodyguard.  We know he didn't need one. His winger provided a much more valuable service.

Lou Fontinato ...
After spending a night in a room with Howe

If you've played, at any level, there was always one player you'd need to be on the lookout for.   You know who I'm referring to ... the one crazy guy ... every team I've played on in the last 60 years had one. Everyone on your team would talk about that guy. You'd quickly know when he was or wasn't on the ice during your game. You'd try to avoid him without embarrassing yourself. It's ok ... you can admit it ... we've all had that guy to deal with.

Mister Hockey, had "Terrible Ted" Lindsay. 

Ted was 5' 8" and 160 lbs of terror. 

If you were one of the Original Six players facing the Wings, you knew you had to have your head on a swivel to locate Lindsay in relation to you. If you need proof of his range, I'll illustrate it shortly but his tongue was as much a weapon as his Northland Pro stick. He was a very mean hombre during an NHL timeframe when every team had that guy.

Lindsay gave Howe the thing that could hurt his opponents the most, space. 

During the Original Six era, a player could be on the ice for up to 2 full minutes. Howe could move freely because every player, at some point in that shift, was distracted as they tried to locate Lindsay.

As you may know, Ted Lindsay was one of my childhood idols. Incidentally, I mentioned that    "Terrible Ted" thing to him once. His response ... "I didn't think I was terrible ... I thought I was good".


 Lindsay Signature Move to Block the Goalie's view of the Puck

Some stroke of luck put us together in 1990 and we developed a  close friendship.  In 2002, I had the honour of presenting his name for induction into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. On the day of the ceremony, we met for lunch. Then it struck me ... this guy's my hockey idol and I'm presenting him for induction into Canada's highest sports honour - what are the chances? 

We'd regularly meet for dinner in Detroit and then move on to his beautiful home set on a golf course.    He loved the look of the golf course but said he never played ... "I didn't care for a sport that didn't have body contact". 

One night, following dinner, we shared a bottle of wine while I showed him some 1960s YouTube game film featuring him doing his thing. Following retirement from the game, he'd been an NBC hockey TV analyst. I was surprised at his reaction to watching himself. He sat mesmerized by the vintage action ... with a look on his face like he was seeing fire for the first time. 

He often talked about his Kirkland Lake home and the town's Juvenile hockey team, Holy Name Irish,  that helped to launch his career.

The Hockey Rink in Kirkland Lake
a Gift to Ted From His KL Friends & Fans

Once he reached the National League and before his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, he found the time to be the architect of the NHLPlayer's Association demanding fair wages and treatment of his fellow players -- I know -- working for the same people he was trying to eviscerate during a game.

In 2010, the league acknowledged his leadership and impact on the game by introducing the                  Ted Lindsay Award ... a companion trophy to the Hart Trophy ... given each year to the player who was chosen "Best" by his fellow players.

Ted and I talked regularly on the phone and he concluded the conversation by always saying ...        "please send my best wishes to your Lorraine" - a gentleman beyond compare (when he wasn't on the ice). By the time he'd passed away at 94 in 2019 -- only a few months before he was expected to visit his Kirkland Lake home to celebrate the city's 100 anniversary, the Red Wings had retired his jersey number, erected a statue of him outside the arena and the organization created the equivalent of a state funeral where fans lined up for hours to pay their respects to Ted and his family.

But, I'm getting way off-topic.

Lindsay always arrived at the rink angry and would do anything and everything possible to win a game. By today's standards of decency and inclusion and fair play, he'd likely be suspended from the league and his fines would have been greater than his salary.

                                   Comparing Lindsay to the other NHL Hell Raisers:



Montreal Heavy Weight John Ferguson had 1200 minutes in penalties.

Chicago's crazy man, Reggie Fleming, had 1400 minutes in penalties




Toronto's totally loco, Eddie Shack, had 1400 minutes in penalties.



Boston's hoodlum, Ted Green, had 1025 minutes in penalties.




New York Ranger's "Leap'n Lou" Fontinato had 1250 minutes

Lindsay had 1800 minutes in penalties and he got it up to 2,000 minutes with his playoff activity.            No member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Original Six era had 2,000 minutes in penalties. Nobody.

And, he could play.

Like Gretzky, he didn't have to wait the normal 3 years for induction, he was inducted immediately. 

Oops ... I forgot about my buddy whom I mentioned earlier. When he returned to Toronto, he worked for the Foster Hewitt radio station, CKFH, selling air time on the Leaf broadcasts, became a high school teacher and then an accomplished artist ... painting mostly sports action.

He was so good, Gretzky commissioned him to create an Oiler Stanley Cup painting in a limited edition that he could gift to celebrity participants in his annual fundraising baseball game for the Canadian Institute for the Blind. 

Stanley Cup Joy by Cam Church


Nice ending.

But back to Gordie. As mentioned, many say he was the best who ever played the game.

To honour the farm boy from Floral Saskatchewan, the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan announced the naming of the new bridge that connects the USA to Canada over the Detroit river @ Windsor  ...                          

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is set for completion in 2024.   

 How many athletes, let alone hockey players, have ever been given such an honour? 

Partners & Pairings: Any discussion about the great Gordie Howe would not be complete without including his wife of 55 years, Colleen.



Gordie may have been hockey's best player but when it came to negotiating his player contract ... he was just another farm boy who was taken advantage of by greedy ownership. Then came Colleen. It took her a while but she taught herself to be good at business. So good, she became the agent for Gordie and his two sons when she negotiated a million-dollar playing contract for them with the Houston Aeros of the WHA. Her resume is quite spectacular - you should Google it. But, the thing about her that, I thought, was most unusual, was the close friendship she had with, arguably, the best basketball player of all time, seven foot two, Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain.

They met in 1987 and had weekly phone conversations about politics and business. Colleen had a great sense of humour ... so Wilt's confession of "20,000" bedroom conquests gave Colleen lots of ammunition to keep their conversations lively. 

My story really had a few turns.   

It started with #9 and his muscles but I couldn't help but think of my buddy's story and how those muscles affected the direction of his life as well as other potential hockey dreamers. Then, the story stickhandled its way into explaining why Howe may not have become Gretzky's favourite player without the help of my idol, #7.

Gretzky The Little Old Wine Maker: A few years ago, Ted joined me in Toronto for one of Lorraine's fabulous Italian dinners. I broke out a bottle of red that I'd been saving for a special occasion and told him so. It was a "Gretzky Estate No 99 "Baco Noir". I told him that I thought players like 99 wouldn't have ever had the chance to enjoy fabulous financial success, like owning their own wineries, had he not formed the NHLPA. He just nodded that familiar crooked smile. I had him sign the empty bottle. I thought Gretzky might get a kick out of this story with a bottle signed by Ted. For safekeeping, until I meet up with him, I put it on top of a hockey display case in my TV room. I was cleaning the case and the bottle toppled six feet to the floor and didn't break. Maybe just a message from Ted ... to let me know he's OK.

If you haven't made up your mind about the fabulous Howe, Google him, all his stats tell the story.  The only thing they don't tell you is he had a "little" help along the way. 

                    Namely, ... a 5'8" 160 lbs package of fury from Kirkland Lake named Ted Lindsay.

Two Lions at Dusk













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