"Mr. Hockey" Gordie Howe

Gordie Howe was once quoted as saying "Hockey is a man's game." In the game of hockey, Gordie is the man.

Hall of Famer Bill Gadsby claimed "He was not only the greatest hockey player I've ever seen, but also the greatest athlete."

The right winger was a giant in his time at 6'1" and 205 lbs. He had the build of a heavyweight boxing champion. And he knew how to fight.

Part of the legend of Gordie Howe is his unmatchable toughness. He had "windshield wiper elbows" and like to give "close shaves" to anyone who dared to challenge. Ask any hockey experts who they'd choose as the toughest NHLer ever, and most would put their money on Gordie Howe against anyone else.

Those who knew Gordie away from the rink would never believe his on ice instincts.

"Despite an even temperament and a real distaste for combat, there is a part of Howe that is calculatingly and primitively savage," Mark Kram wrote in Sports Illustrated in 1964. "He is a punishing artist with a hockey stick, slashing, spearing, tripping and high-sticking his way to a comparative degree of solitude on the ice."

Gordie had a nasty habit of never forgetting and always getting even. One hockey legend serves as a fine example of this would have been an exchange with Maple Leaf defenseman Bob Baun. In 1957, Baun knocked Howe down with vicious intent. Howe had to be helped to the bench. 10 seasons later in 1967, Baun was playing for Oakland and was defending Howe on a one-on-one rush. Howe took a shot and the follow through of the stick caught Baun in the throat. Baun was down on the ice bleeding. Howe mercilessly stood over him and said "Now we're even."

While few in the game were tougher than "Mr. Hockey," even fewer were more talented. In his prime in the 1950s and 1960s he was routinely described by coaches as the smartest player, the finest passer, the best playmaker and the most unstoppable puck carrier in the game. Aldo Guidolin, an opponent of Howe back in the early days, understatedly remarked "Gordie plays a funny kind of game; he doesn't let anyone else touch the puck!"

Gordie Howe not only outperformed everybody, but outlasted everybody. Gordie played from 1946 until 1980. In his last season he was a 51 year old grandfather playing with and against players the were old enough to be his son! Howe played 33 seasons in the pros. One with Omaha of the USHL, 26 in the NHL (25 with Detroit) and 6 with the WHA.

While Wayne Gretzky has since dwarfed all of his statistical achievements, Howe dominated the game over many different eras.

His credentials speak for him. He won the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player in 1952, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, and 1963. He led the NHL in scoring in 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1957 and 1963. He finished in the top 5 of NHL scoring in 20 consecutive seasons. He was a 21 time All Star.

During the 1950s the standard argument was "Who's better? Howe or Maurice ("The Rocket") Richard. Upon The Rocket's retirement, Richard admitted Howe was the best. "Gordie could do everything" he said.

When it comes to who is the greatest player of all time, one of Howe's chief rivals is the Boston Bruins stand out Bobby Orr. Howe was already a NHL star when Bobby Orr was born in 1948, and was still in the big leagues when Orr retired in 1979. No skater can compare to Howe when it comes to the test of surviving time.

It's too bad the New York Rangers did not have a crystal ball. They were the first NHL team to discover him, and at age 15 invited him to their junior training camp in Winnipeg. A homesick Howe performed poorly and wanted to go back to the family farm in Saskatchewan. The unimpressed Rangers never thought twice about it, and let the quiet kid go without signing him to their organization.

The next year, a Red Wings scout discovered him and invited him to the team's training camp in Windsor, Ontario. A more mature Howe impressed, as the Red Wings acquired his playing rights. Two years later, at 18, Howe was playing in the NHL.

Howe did not set the league on fire right away. Howe spent more time establishing his physical reputation in that time, scoring a total of only 35 goals but dropping the gloves with any and all comers. The Red Wings were able to convince him that he would be better served to stay out of the penalty box, the ambidextrous shooter scored 35 goals in 1949-50, second in the NHL to Rocket Richard's 43.

A playoff game in March 1950 defines the essence of Gordie Howe. It happened in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Red Wings bitter rivals the Toronto Maple Leafs. The result almost ended his life, never mind his hockey career. Teeder Kennedy was carrying the puck when Gordie attempted to intercept him. A fraction of a second before impact, Kennedy pulled up, catapulting Gordie head first into the boards. He laid crumpled on the ice with a fractured skull. He was considered extremely lucky to survive such a blow and was told he'd never play hockey again. The next year he was the league's scoring leader by 20 points. It was the first of four consecutive Art Ross trophies as scoring champion.

His 1951-52 MVP season was even sweeter. After leading the NHL in scoring (86 points) and goals (47), he led Detroit to an 8-0 record in the playoffs in its sweep to the Stanley Cup.

In 1952-53, Howe became the first player to score at least 90 points, notching 95, with a career-high 49 goals. The Red Wings, who were upset by Boston in the first round of the playoffs that season, rebounded by winning the Cup in 1954 and 1955, giving them four championships in six years. The Wings enjoyed one of hockey's greatest dynasties, but it proved to be Howe's last Stanley Cup.

Howe would continue to dominate in this six-team, 70-game era. He became the NHL's career scoring leader in 1960 when he passed Richard's 946 points on Jan. 16, 1960. In 1962-63, Howe won his sixth MVP and scoring championship (86 points). On Nov. 10, 1963, he became the league's all-time leading goal scorer with 545, passing Richard again.

In 1968-69, in the second year of expansion, Howe achieved his first 100-point season. On the day before his 41st birthday, he scored four points in the season finale to give him 103.

Gordie retired from the Detroit Red Wings in 1971 to take a front office job. But after two years of inactivity, Gordie made one of the most astonishing come backs in pro sport history. At the age 45, he signed with the Houston Aeros of the WHA where he was teammates with his two sons Mark and Marty. The Howes lead their team to the WHA title twice under his leadership.

In 1977 he and his boys joined the WHA's New England Whalers. When the Whalers joined the NHL as the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80, Gordie made his triumphant return to the NHL at the unthinkable age 51! He drew capacity crowds as the fans wanted to see the 50 year old grandfather play against the young stars like Bryan Trottier, Marcel Dionne and Wayne Gretzky. In the Whalers first year they made playoffs. Then-Whalers president Howard Baldwin credited Howe, who scored 15 goals, with that feat. Howe wasn't exactly in his prime at that age, but he didn't look out of place on many nights either.

Over a period of 32 years (combining NHL and WHA totals) Gordie Howe scored 1071 goals 1518 assists and 2589 points. Only Wayne Gretzky's career totals are better. Howe was a gifted power forward, an accomplished defensive player, a feared giant and the only player to have dominated three different eras - postwar NHL, the Golden Era of the 1960s and the Expansion Era.

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Steve Yzerman

Heroic. Unselfish. Intelligent. Leader. Complete. These are just a few of the adjectives used to describe Hockeytown's Steve Yzerman.

Once he was scoring machine that used to single-handedly destroy the opposition with mind-boggling individual efforts night after night. Later he became forever remembered as the grizzled veteran captain that puts the team ahead of himself and accepts responsibility for all situations on the ice.

Steve Yzerman is a winner.

Stevie Y came out of junior hockey straight into the Detroit Red Wings camp in 1983. The Nepean, Ontario native was an outstanding center with legendary junior coach Dick Todd and his Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League, from 1981 to 1983. He had 91 points in 56 games in his second year with the Petes, but his numbers were far from what a future NHL phenom would have had because Peterborough skated four lines, each having equal playing time.

Jim Devellano, the Wings GM at the time, had originally set his sights on Michigan native Pat LaFontaine for the 1983 draft, but his plans were foiled when LaFontaine was taken 3rd by the Islanders. With some disappointment, the Red Wings were left with the small Yzerman with the 4th overall pick. (Brian Lawton and Sylvain Turgeon went 1 & 2, respectively.)

Any notion of disappointment or concern about his size quickly disappeared. Yzerman arrived at training camp in 1983, "he immediately was our best player," said Devellano, who opened camp already deciding Yzerman would return to Peterborough. Instead Yzerman jumpstarted the Motor City, immediately giving the Wings hopes that finally they had found the player that would lead them back to respectability. In his rookie season, Yzerman scored 39 goals and 87 points and announced to the hockey world the Y-man had cometh.

Steve's great play would continue, but it was in the spring of 1987 when Yzerman first began is catapult to superstardom. That year he led the Wings deep into the playoffs, scoring 18 points in 16 games. He followed that up the next season by registering his first 50 goal and 100 point campaigns, and he did that in only 64 games.

The following season saw his point totals explode to the level that only Gretzky and Lemieux dared to enter. In 80 games Stevie Y scored 65 times while assisting on 90 others for 155 points! All three of those stats are Red Wing team records. For his efforts, Yzerman was voted by the players as the best player in the league that season, winning the Lester B. Pearson Trophy.

Proving that the previous season was no strange fluke, Yzerman duplicated his scoring feats by registering 62 twine-twisters with 65 assists for 127 points.

Despite the incredible offensive output by the Cranbrook, BC-born superstar, Yzerman never once made either the First or Second All Star Team. Nor did he win an Art Ross as the scoring leader. That's what happens when Gretzky and Lemieux were also around in their primes. No one, not even Stevie Y, could obtain their status or touch their trophies. Once you include the great Mark Messier as well, players as great as Steve Yzerman were unthinkably left off of Team Canada's national teams at Canada Cups.

Back in Detroit, despite being the one-man highlight film, the Red Wings had little playoff success to speak of.

This one man show of offensive fireworks would continue until the 1993-94 season when something happened in Yzerman's career. He sacrificed his own scoring exploits to become one of the best two way players in the history of the game.

While this transformation coincided with the arrival of Scotty Bowman, who gets much of the credit for the reworked masterpiece, it was Yzerman who deserves full credit. Dating back to his junior days he was always a solid two way player. Now he opted to focus his gifts equally all over the ice as opposed to just on offense. Stevie Wonder would turn from a rather one-dimensional offensive machine into one of the greatest two way players in the history of the sport.

Yzerman became perhaps the most complete player of the 1990s, continuing his offensive production, though at a lower rate, while dominating his defensive zone with vigor. In the process, Yzerman became a leader. He knew that becoming a more complete player was what was necessary for him to succeed and the Wings to win. His example spurred great things in Hockeytown.

Soon after this transformation, the Wings have began a mini-dynasty. Three Stanley Cups in five years, including back-to-back championships.

In 1995, Yzerman led Detroit to its first Stanley Cup finals series, the first for the team since the 1960s, but they were swept by the New Jersey Devils. In 1996, Detroit finished with an NHL record 62 regular season wins but they lost in the Conference finals to the eventual champions Colorado Avalanche.

In 1997, Yzerman led Detroit to its first Stanley Cup in 42 years by sweeping the Philadelphia Flyers in 4 straight games. The following year Detroit repeated the feat, taking four in a row from the Washington Capitals. Yzerman's leadership and 24 points earned him the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. In an act of class, Yzerman handed the Cup first to the paralyzed Vladimir Konstantinov, a Red Wing defenseman who had been injured severely in a car accident just six days after the Cup victory in 1997.

Playoff frustrations would haunt the Red Wings in the following years, but they would regain the silver chalice in 2002. That year Yzerman turned in one of the most amazing seasons by any player in NHL history. Due to a hobbling knee injury, Yzerman, almost literally playing on one leg, led Canada to its first Olympic gold medal in 50 years before leading the Wings to their 3rd Stanley Cup championship in five years.

Steve Yzerman is no longer the high scoring one-man show of the Detroit Red Wings. Instead he is one of the game's most complete players ever. He is one the greatest leaders the ice has ever known. And most importantly, he is the captain of the 3 Stanley Cup Championships.

One of the NHL's true all time greats, Steve Yzerman is what hockey is all about.

The 41-year-old Yzerman is a Detroit sports icon, the longest-serving captain in NHL history (19 seasons). He and Gordie Howe are widely regarded as the greatest players in franchise history. Yzerman ranks seventh on the NHL's career list in goals (692) and assists (1,063) and sixth in points (1,755).

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Ted Lindsay

No man on skates was ever too big or too tough for Ted Lindsay to challenge. At 5'8" and 160lbs he used his big stick and his fists to cut down some of the biggest meanest men in National Hockey League history.

He was known as Scarface or Terrible Ted. The scars on his rugged face represented his courage in his many on ice battles. How many scars he can't tell you, because he lost count after 400 stitches. The nickname "Terrible" only referred to his reputation, because his play was magnificent.

The son of NHL goaltender Bert Lindsay, Ted Lindsay broke into the league in 1944 making the big jump to the NHL at age 19. Lindsay was a celebrated junior player with the St. Michael's Majors in Toronto, but somehow escaped the talent scouts of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Renfrew-born, Kirkland Lake raised Lindsay was property of the Detroit Red Wings, much to the chagrin of Leafs boss Conn Smythe.

Lindsay stepped in as a rookie and played on a line with the great Syd Howe and playoff hero Mud Bruneteau. Lindsay, though a small player, made his on-ice presence felt. He was full of moxie and never showed any hesitation in waging wars with the biggest and baddest men in the league. He was rough, often mean and occasionally dirty.

It was with a different line and with a different Howe that Lindsay would be famous for. For much of his career he played left wing on Detroit's famous "Production Line" with Gordie Howe and Sid Abel. With Lindsay in the lineup the Red Wings won eight regular season titles and four Stanley Cup Championships in the 40s and 50s.

Lindsay's place among hockey's great LWs is not in doubt. He was a 9 time all star, include 8 selections to the First Team. The 1950 Art Ross trophy winner scored 379 career goals, 472 career assists and 851 career points. He also had over 1800 PIMs in a 1000+ game career, all amazing numbers for the Original Six era.

Although he ranks as one of if not THE greatest left wingers in hockey history, perhaps his off ice achievements are his greatest legacy. He, and Doug Harvey, organized a handful of players who were courageous enough to stand up and challenge team ownership and organize the first professional hockey player's union, now known as the NHLPA.

On February 12th, 1957 the NHLPA's formation was announced, and almost immediately NHL owners looked to squash the movement. Each team began the successful disintegration of the player's movement, and they went to whatever lengths were deemed necessary. Jack Adams, the Red Wings legendary boss, was particularly irate and intimidate everyone of his players, and in most he was very successful. He unleashed a system campaign of lies and personal attacks on Lindsay, scaring most of the Red Wings players into backing away from certification votes.

The most notable name to back down was Gordie Howe, the best player in the league. Without Howe's commitment, the NHLPA was doomed to fail, and Lindsay knew it. This whole episode caused a major rift between the two that has never been fully healed.

For his union organizing activities, Detroit had little choice but to trade Lindsay to Chicago in 1957.

"A series of rumors about my attitude, as well as derogatory remarks about myself and my family showed me that the personal resentment of the Detroit general manager toward me would make it impossible for me to continue playing hockey in Detroit," said Lindsay.

Lindsay would play three years in Chicago, but his heart was always tattooed with Detroit's Winged Wheel. He retired a beaten man, an empty man.

Amazingly, after 4 years of retirement, he rejoined the Red Wings to finish off his career. "I just had the desire to wind up my career with the Red Wings," said Lindsay. "I liked playing in Chicago, and I gave them everything I had, but I knew in my heart I was a Red Wing."

"Through the years, I have so many wonderful memories of playing with the Red Wings: winning four Stanley Cups, scoring big goals, going into battle every night side by side with my teammates, playing with every ounce of effort I could muster."

The comeback only lasted one season but it was a season in which the Red Wings would lead the league for the first time in 8 years. Lindsay then re-retired and was inducted into the Hall of Fame a year later.

"Looking back, I've never had one regret," he said.

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