Mom has always been a hockey fan, and she still has emotional attachment to the players she grew up with perhaps most of all. None of them, not even Jean Beliveau, could match Mr Hockey (and she grew up an Armstrong-led Leaf fan).
June 10, 2016
Growing up my mother had two heroes: One was Mr Hockey, Gordie Howe. The other was Elvis Presley. Gordie played hockey right until I was five years old, having taken 2 years off for a short retirement before he came back to play in the WHA with his two sons.
His last season on NHL ice was in 1979-80 with the Hartford Whalers– when I was five years old. My father, born a few months after Howe in the same year, died a year after Gordie Howe retired. Howe kept being Howe, and through all the times I saw my mother light up with him on screen, all the time his name was mentioned as Gretzky broke another one of his records (he didn’t get them all, though) he was an icon for me as a little boy with many different meanings.
But my minute with Gordie will always be special. In roughly 1983 (I’m not certain) my mother took me to see the Habs play so I could see my active hero of the day, Guy Lafleur (and Larry Robinson). But, unannounced, Howe was in Vancouver to present an award and mom and I were unexpecting and sitting in the stands. Howe was announced and my mother turned into a high school girl– I can hear the glee in her voice as she pointed down to the ice and bounced up and down, tugging at me”Look, it’s Gordie Howe– that’s Gordie Howe, I didn’t expect Gordie Howe!” And she got very excited.
After the game we went down to where the players come out from the visitors dressing room so I could get autographs from Habs. I was there when Howe came out and mom told me I had to deal with that. I fought a little (I’m tiny now, really tiny then) to get to the barricade and yell at Gordie to come by and sign my magazine, and I yelled at him while anxiously trying to get the signature. He yelled back at me to “hold my horses.” He signed the magazine, it’s somewhere in my storage of stuff about.
The whole ride home mom was in another plane of good mood– and she was happiest about me “getting yelled at” by Gordie Howe. Funny, but I’m the one who got the autograph, and I’m the one who was at the front, heard his voice and touched his hand when passing the magazine. But my mother was the one star struck, and even though she took me to that game so I could see my favourite Montréal Canadien players– the memories are not of the game, or even myself. It’s mom, taking her kid out, and being surprised with the joy of feeling like a kid herself.
Thanks Gordie, you played a Hell of a game. But you also made the women swoon. Including the best of them all.