A collection of flowers, pucks and jerseys at a Gordie Howe statue outside of Sasktel Centre in Saskatoon, Friday, June 10, 2016Liam Richards/The Canadian Press
The National Hockey League that Gordie Howe began his career in was very different from the 30-team monstrosity we know today. Mr. Howe, who died Friday at age 88, was the greatest star of the old six-team league. Rosters were just 16 or 17 skaters. To make the NHL during the Original Six era, you had to be one of the best 100 hockey players in the world – which, at the time Gordie started, meant being one of the 100 best players in Canada.
To dominate the Original Six for 21 years as its greatest scorer, then continue to shine after expansion started in 1967, then retire in 1971, then come out of retirement two years later and join the upstart WHA, playing eight more seasons at a top level until re-retiring at age 52, well, you had to be Gordie Howe.
There will never be another like him. He scored 801 goals in the NHL and tallied more than a point a game while suiting up for more opening faceoffs than any player in the league's history.
And he did most of this during the Original Six era. Hockey was a different game then, more brutal. The six teams played against each other as many as 14 times in a regular season. Rivalries were gang-like but there were no goons or enforcers – you had to take care of yourself.
Virtually all the players were Canadian, and most came from farms or towns like Gordie's home of Floral, Sask. They were tough men raised during the Depression. When they made it to the NHL, they did everything and anything required to stay there. That meant being skillful, but it also included bending the rules regarding the proper disposition of elbows and stick blades when circumstances required it. The owners, for their part, bent the rules on player pay. In 1968-69, when as a 41-year-old Mr. Howe recorded a career high 103 points, he was paid just $45,000.
It is difficult to compare the output of NHL players of one era with those of another. But what Mr. Howe accomplished in a time when the talent on-ice was far more concentrated than it is today is simply astonishing. That he did it with such modesty and grace off-ice is equally impressive.
Mr. Howe's death is the moment to celebrate one of Canada's greatest sports heroes, and arguably its greatest hockey player. He represented an era when hockey was Canada's game alone, and when its stars and regular players came from small towns and hard times, their aw-shucks modesty covering wills of iron and murderous determination. They represented the best of the Canadian character, and Gordie Howe was their uncontested leader.