Saskatoon Star Phoenix [Special Supplement]
August 14, 1982. p.36
Throughout the years Saskatoon has had its share of sports celebrities, but one in particular had withstood the test of time - Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe.
Howe was unique. He already was a legend in what many felt was the twilight of his career. Problem was, nobody told Howe.
He was honored by Saskatoon in 1966 when the Holiday Park sports complex was renamed Gordon Howe Park. At that time, he was a 20-year veteran with Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League.
But he wasn't ready to retire. He moved to Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association, helping the fledgling league get off the ground and at the same time fulfilling a personal dream - playing hockey with his sons Mark and Marty. Eventually he found his way back to the NHL in 1979 with Hartford Whalers. Imagine, a grandfather playing in the NHL.
Howe played 32 professional hockey seasons, including 25 with the Red Wings. He took part in 1,767 regular-season NHL games and scored 801 goals while assisting on 1,049.
He won the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player a record six times and helped the Red Wings to four Stanley Cup titles.
His NHL and WHA career (six seasons with Houston and New England) spanned five decades in which he set more than a dozen records. He retired for the second time on June 5, 1980, at the age of 52 but remained with Hartford in an executive capacity.
Following are excerpts from the Star-Phoenix about Gordie Howe Day in Saskatoon, July 22, 1966:
Thousands of people lined the streets of Saskatoon this morning to pay homage to the "monarch" of hockey - Gordie Howe.
Young, old, brushcut to beatle cut, stood knee-to-knee and hooted, hollered and waved signs as "their" hockey player was honored by his native city.
Gordie Howe Day was officially kicked off by a parade complete with bands, floats and visiting sports personalities.
Up and down the parade route, the real small-fry provided the big-guest welcome for Gordie.
Home-made signs were jauntily waved in the air as the Howe family was escorted by in an open convertible.
Danny Gallivan, the voice of the Montreal Canadiens, was in another open-topped car.
Tribute to the hockey great was not restricted to signs and cheering. One mother decked her daughters out with special, full skirts. As Howe's car came by, the girls who were standing in front of the crowd, spread the skirts out to show the world "Gordie" emblazoned across the bottom.
It was 2:30 p.m. Friday. Gordon Howe Bowl was filled with 3,000 children and their parents. They were almost quiet.
At 2:31 p.m. a shout went up from somewhere near the gate: "Here he comes! Here comes Gordie!"
Pandemonium!
Even more children appeared from seemingly nowhere, running en masse down the hillsides like a Cossack charge in a 1930 movie.
The cause of the stampede was a chartered bus bearing Gordie Howe, his wife, hockey and civic personalities.
This was the children's reception for Gordie Howe, one of Saskatoon's most famous native sons, on the day proclaimed in his honor.
The noise dies to a dull roar as Howe and his wife Colleen thread their way through the throng escorted by a pair of burly traffic policemen.
The master of ceremonies introduced Mayor E.J. Cole and the other platform guests - preliminaries were soon completed.
It was the children out in front that provided the color, the atmosphere, the hysteria and perhaps above all the warmth of a welcome home to a long hero who had been away too long.
Signs, all home-made, some a little cruder in workmanship than others, were waved and hoisted everywhere.
The children of Saskatoon appeared to have stamped their individual personalities into each sign.
Three young boys said they had spent two days working on their sign. It took two of them to carry it. The sign was cardboard, masking tape, hockey sticks and colored photographs. It stood about six and half feet high.
Another little girl had made hers in a more feminine fashion . . . and a motif that said "Gordie Howe. Yea, Yea, Yea."
Meanwhile, back on the platform No. 9 was being introduced to many players from the Saskatoon Minor Hockey Association. Each young.
The questions ran:
Who has the hardest shot? Which team is the hardest to play? How is the roughest hockey player? Will Montreal win the Stanley Cup again?
Howe replied to them all with answers that would have done the Canadian Diplomatic Corps proud.
Then, almost as quickly as it started, the reception was over. For many of the children it was over too quickly.
At the back of the throng a couple of small ones were already asleep in the arms of their parents or on the discarded cardboard signs . . . They missed the ending.
Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings, a modest, humble citizen who has toiled 20 years in the National Hockey League, Friday night in Saskatoon said he had just completed a day he would recall for the rest of his life.
The big fellow, repeatedly acclaimed the greatest hockey player in the world, was left almost speechless as a bulging crowd of 4,000 gathered at the Arena for the wind-up to Gordie Howe Day here.
The Arena program was the end of quick-moving, 24-hour schedule during which people from far and near came here to pay tribute to Howe.
Through its chief magistrate Mayor Ernie Cole, the city practically turned the town over to the famous hockey star. The day, by special proclamation, was declared his.
Besides the program proper, arranged through an idea born at CFQC Radio and Television and spearheaded by co-chairman Dennis Fisher and Stan Thomas and publicity chairman Les Edwards, an unexpected honor was announced for Howe at the closing function Friday. Monsignor Athol Murray of Notre Dame, Wilcox, announced that Howe had been named honorary chairman of Canada's National hockey team.
Jack Adams, the man who first coached Howe in the NHL with Detroit, said the program here was the greatest tribute ever paid an individual anywhere he had been.
Gifts to the hockey hero and his family were not expensive or massive but there were many of them. The main theme of the 24-hour program was to offer recognition to Howe. This was accomplished in a simple but impressive manner.
At the Arena show the capacity crowd time after time gave Howe a standing ovation. The applause went on and on and one could sense the genuine feeling behind it all.
Speakers for the evening included Vern DeGeer of Montreal, a native of Saskatoon who has long been drumming for a special Gordie Howe Day here; Doug Barkley and Alex Delvecchio, teammates of Howe; Mr. Adams, the president of the Central Professional League and longtime manager and coach of the Red Wings; Jonny Bucyk of the Boston Bruins; Bill Hicke of the New York Rangers; John Ferguson of Montreal Canadians; Clarence Campbell, the NHL president; Pierre Pilote of the Chicago Black Hawks; Jonny Bower of the Toronto maple Leafs; Jack Wells, former Saskatoonian and now prominent in radio and television work in Winnipeg; Danny Gallivan, the radio and television voice of the Montreal Canadiens; Wally Boshuck of the Sterling Finance Company here which has launched the Gordon Howe-Sterling Finance scholarships of $1,000 each in the Saskatoon Kinsmen Pee Wee Hockey League; and Monsignor Murray.
Master of ceremony duties were shared by Lloyd Saunders and Verne Prior.
A film on the early life of Gordon Howe, produced at CFQC with Stan Thomas the narrator, provided a most interesting touch to the Friday night program. It dealt chiefly with interviews with members of the Howe family, Gordie's Mother and Dad and his sisters.
Mrs. Howe (Colleen) and the four children, Marty, Mark, Cathy and Murray, sat with the parents and listened attentively, although sometimes a bit on the tired side, as their famous dad was "acclaimed."
Howe was born on a farm at Floral, March 31, 1928, and moved to Saskatoon with his parents when he was nine days old.
