RIP Gordie Howe

[clydepepper]

I've never been much of a Hockey fan, but I do know he was one of the greatest...my condolences to all his fans.





.

[cool-vintage]

As a hockey fan first I was sad to see this news. I never saw him play, but I became a fan of him after hearing others talk about him and watching highlights.
RIP Mr.Hockey

[brian1961]

He truly earned the moniker given to him---Mr. Hockey.

In an era when numbers were not sky high, and there were but six teams and 120 players, the classic argument was, who's the best---Gordie Howe or Maurice Richard? Both epitomized the game, and both were adored by their many fans, and both Gordie and Maurice loved and were great to their many fans. It doesn't matter anymore who was better---Gordie and Maurice were both among the top 5 players in NHL history. I'm just glad I got to see Gordie play on TV when I was young.

For what it's worth, Gordie Howe was the childhood hero of Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky.

He suffered excruciating pain when his beloved wife Colleen passed away in 2009. They were very devoted to each other and their children. I still shake my head in wonder what that must have been like to watch the Howe Line play for Houston. Gordie wasn't "the weakest link", either. It doesn't matter--the Howes were all good.

As I wrote on the PSA Forum, whoever thought of the absurd notion of having one's elbows registered with the police department, was surely thinking of Gordie! If you messed with him; boy, were you in for it!

Growing up as I did in the suburbs of Chicago from the late 50s-70s, I was a rabid Black Hawks fan. Regardless, most all of us kids liked and admired Mr. Howe. He was the sport's face, the man.

God rest his soul, continue to preserve his good reputation, and comfort and console his family, teammates, friends, and fans. ---Brian Powell

[Peter_Spaeth]

Howe obviously had extreme longevity, but in general it seems there are a ton of hockey players who keep going for 20+ years, well into their early 40s. It's such a physical game that it is not immediately apparent to me why that is.

[Butch7999]

All due respect, Peter, but that's just not the case. It was true, within a short window of time from the late '60s to the late '70s,
when expansion saw the number of major league teams increase from a mere six to more than thirty in that decade --
the dilution of talent allowed some guys who'd been among the roughly 120 best before 1967 to continue to compete effectively
among a major-league landscape that soon included over 600. But before that, back to the 19th-century dawn of hockey,
and then afterwards, since the 1980s, it's always been unusual to have guys playing too much past their early 30s.
Players like Jagr today, or Howe even then, are extremely rare exceptions.