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Gordie Howe
Gordon Howe OC (March 31, 1928 – June 10, 2016) was a
Canadian professional ice hockey player. From 1946 to 1980, he played 26
seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) and six seasons in the World Hockey
Association (WHA); his first 25 seasons were spent with the Detroit Red Wings.
Nicknamed "Mr. Hockey", Howe is often considered the most complete
player to ever play the game and one of the greatest of all time. At his retirement, his 801 goals, 1,049
assists, and 1,850 total points were all NHL records that stood until they were
broken by Wayne Gretzky, who himself has been a major champion of Howe's
legacy. A 23-time NHL All-Star, he still holds the NHL record for seasons
played, and his all-time NHL games played record of 1,767 was only surpassed in
2021 by Patrick Marleau. In 2017, Howe was named one of the "100 Greatest
NHL Players".
Howe made his NHL debut with the Red Wings in 1946. He won
the Art Ross Trophy for leading the league in points each year from 1950–51 to
1953–54, then again in 1956–57 and 1962–63, for a total of six times, which is
the second most in NHL history. He led the NHL in goal scoring four times. He
ranked among the top ten in NHL scoring for 21 consecutive years and set an NHL
record for points in a season (95) in 1953, a record which was broken six years
later. He won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings four times and won six Hart
Trophies as the NHL's most valuable player. He also led the NHL in playoff
points six times.
Howe retired for the first time in 1971 and was immediately
inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame that same year. He was then
inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame the next year, but came back two years
later to join his sons Mark and Marty on the Houston Aeros of the WHA. Although
in his mid-40s, he scored over 100 points twice in six years, won two straight
Avco World Trophies (1974 and 1975) and was named most valuable player in 1974.
He made a brief return to the NHL in 1979–80, playing one season with the
Hartford Whalers, then retired at age 52. His involvement with the WHA was
central to their brief pre-NHL merger success, forcing the NHL to recruit
European talent and expand to new markets.
Howe was most famous for his scoring prowess, physical
strength and career longevity, and redefined the ideal qualities of a forward.
He is the only player to have competed in the NHL in five different decades
(1940s through 1980s); he also played a shift in a 1997 game for the Detroit
Vipers of the IHL, playing professional hockey for a sixth decade. He became
the namesake of the "Gordie Howe hat trick": a goal, an assist, and a
fight in the same game, though he only recorded two such games in his career. He
was the inaugural recipient of the NHL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.