50 Fun Facts About Gordie Howe

What was Gordie Howe's famous nickname?

Mr. Hockey. His wife Colleen, who ran the family business, registered the nickname as a trademark, along with her own, Mrs. Hockey.

In which 1986 teen comedy does a main character wear Gordie Howe's Red Wings jersey for most of the film?

Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Cameron wears it even though the film is set in Chicago, home of the rival Blackhawks, and Howe said he sent the filmmakers the jersey himself.

In which Canadian province was Gordie Howe born?

Saskatchewan. He was born in a farmhouse at Floral and grew up in Saskatoon, and at 15 he walked out of his first NHL training camp because he was homesick for the province.

Which exercise did doctors prescribe the teenage Gordie Howe, fearing a calcium deficiency had weakened his spine?

Chin-ups. Together with the concrete he hauled on building sites beside his father, they gave him the sloping shoulders and powerful forearms of his playing days.

Which perk persuaded Howe to take sweater number 9 in 1947?

A lower Pullman berth on road trips. On the team's overnight trains the lower sweater numbers got the bottom bunks, so he gave up the 17 he wore as a rookie when 9 came free.

Which player passed Howe's 801 NHL goals in December 2022?

Alex Ovechkin. He tied and passed Howe in one night, scoring twice against Winnipeg, the second goal into an empty net.

Howe's record of 1,767 NHL games was finally passed in April 2021 by which player?

Patrick Marleau. Howe still leads if his 419 games in the WHA, which the NHL does not recognise, are counted: 2,186 in the major leagues.

What three things make up a 'Gordie Howe hat trick'?

A goal, an assist and a fight. The NHL has never counted it as an official statistic, and the first one on record came years before Howe was born.

Who is credited with a record 18 'Gordie Howe hat tricks', as of 2025?

Rick Tocchet. Howe himself had only two, both in the 1953-54 season, and few players dared to fight him after he battered the enforcer Lou Fontinato in 1959.

Which two linemates joined Howe on the famous 'Production Line'?

Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay. The name saluted the car factories of the team's home city as much as the goals: in 1949-50 the trio were the NHL's top three scorers.

Which Maple Leafs captain was Howe trying to check when he fractured his skull in 1950?

Ted Kennedy. Howe crashed head first into the boards and needed emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain, yet he walked onto the ice weeks later when his team won the Cup.

Leading the NHL in points four seasons running won Howe which trophy?

Art Ross Trophy. He won the first by 20 points, a season after the head injury that nearly killed him, and went on to win six in all.

Opponents gave Howe which second nickname, for the weapon he favoured in the corners?

Mr. Elbows. Told as a brawling rookie by coach Jack Adams to stop fighting everyone, Howe fought selectively and let his elbows do the policing.

At which position did Mark Howe, a left winger beside his father in the WHA, later reach the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Defence. Mark was the WHA's rookie of the year as a winger in 1974 and filled in on the blue line there, then moved back for good in the NHL and entered the Hall in 2011.

As an NHL rookie, Howe kept what as proof for the future that he had really played in the league?

A scrapbook. He scored in his first game yet doubted he would last in the league; he went on to play 26 NHL seasons.

Which baseball Hall of Famer, a Tigers great of Howe's own era, helped carry his casket in 2016?

Al Kaline. The casket was borne into a public visitation that ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., hours chosen in honour of the number 9 Howe wore.

In 1968-69 Howe was one of the first three 100-point scorers in NHL history; which Boston centre got there first?

Phil Esposito. He got there four weeks before Howe, who scored his 100th point on the season's last day, the eve of his 41st birthday.

Which Montreal right winger, also wearing 9, was Howe's great rival in the 1950s?

Maurice Richard. Howe fell one goal short of Richard's record 50 in 1952-53, then took his career goals record a decade later, in 1963.

Which Chicago rival, later his teammate, described Howe as 'strong as a bull and tougher than a night in jail'?

Bobby Hull. He also said he enjoyed every high-sticking minute of their duels, and the two ended up as teammates in 1979-80, the last season for both.

Howe's only 100-point NHL season followed which league change?

Doubling to twelve teams. Expansion in 1967 brought more scoring chances, and Howe, at 40 and on a line with Alex Delvecchio and Frank Mahovlich, scored 44 goals and 103 points.

Which discovery in 1969 soured Howe on his club's management?

He was only the team's third-highest-paid player. Owner Bruce Norris gave him a large raise but blamed Howe's wife Colleen, who acted as his agent, for the demand.

Which chronic problem forced Howe's first retirement after the 1970-71 season?

A wrist injury. Arthritis in his left wrist sent him to a front-office desk, and two years later he had surgery on it so that he could come back and play alongside his sons.

In a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, Bart sends which character a photo of Gordie Howe, posing as her admirer?

Edna Krabappel. Bart invents a suitor called Woodrow to prank his lonely teacher, then, seeing how hard she has fallen, lets her down gently with a goodbye letter.

Which WHA team did Howe join in 1973 to play alongside his sons?

Houston Aeros. The club ignored the age limit to draft his two teenage sons, then invited their 45-year-old father as well, in a deal his wife Colleen put together.

After the 1950 head injury left Howe with a facial tic, teammates gave him which nickname?

Blinky. The slight tic was the lasting trace of the fractured skull that nearly killed him, and he went on to play for 30 more years.

What happened to the WHA's MVP trophy a year after Howe won it at 46?

Renamed after him. The Gary L. Davidson Trophy became the Gordie Howe Trophy after he came out of a two-year retirement to score 100 points in his first WHA season.

After chasing a purse snatcher and returning the bag in 1973, Howe asked for what in return?

That they come to his games. He chased the thief for several blocks until the purse was dropped, and at 45 he was doing all he could to sell hockey in his new team's city.

After a severe stroke in 2014, Howe's family took him to which country for an experimental stem cell treatment?

Mexico. The spinal injections were not yet allowed in the United States, so he joined a clinical trial at a clinic in Tijuana; his family said the only other choice was Russia.

Which first did Howe claim while playing alongside his sons?

First grandfather to play pro hockey. His son and teammate Mark became a father while the two were still on the ice together, and Gordie kept playing until he was 52.

Whose injury did Howe avenge by felling Robbie Ftorek with his stick?

His son Marty's. Howe was around 50 and playing in the WHA; Ftorek, who had broken a bone in Marty's face, went down hurt, and Howe's only punishment was a five-minute penalty.

Which country did Howe and his sons face in the 1974 Summit Series?

Soviet Union. The famous 1972 series had been for NHL players only, so the rival WHA staged its own two years later, with the 46-year-old Howe on a line with his son Mark.

Which teenager centred a line with Gordie and Mark Howe at the 1979 WHA All-Star Games?

Wayne Gretzky. He was 17 and Gordie Howe 50, and with Mark on the other wing the line helped the WHA All-Stars beat Dynamo Moscow.

Which NHL team did Howe play his final season for in 1979-80?

Hartford Whalers. His WHA club was absorbed into the NHL in 1979, so at 51 he returned to the league he had left eight years earlier and played all 80 games.

Which US president paid tribute to 'the late, great Gordie Howe' in a speech to Canada's Parliament weeks after his death?

Barack Obama. He said the two countries' only battles now take place on the hockey rink, then drew groans by adding that American teams had won more Stanley Cups.

As of 2025, which defenceman, who played until 48, is the next-oldest NHL player after the 52-year-old Howe?

Chris Chelios. He matched Howe's record of 26 NHL seasons before retiring in 2010, but still fell four years short of Howe's age in his final game.

Howe's 801st and last regular-season NHL goal, in April 1980, came against which team?

Detroit Red Wings. He scored it in his last regular-season game against the club he had served for 25 seasons, then added one more goal in the playoffs days later.

For which IHL team did Howe play one shift in 1997 to reach a sixth professional decade?

Detroit Vipers. He was 69, and the single shift also meant he had played professional hockey in every decade of his own life from his teens to his sixties.

Which teammate of Howe's was traded to Chicago in 1957 after leading the first drive for an NHL players' association?

Ted Lindsay. He took up the cause after learning how much better players in other sports were treated, and today's players' union names its award for the season's outstanding player after him.

Which of its rules did the Hockey Hall of Fame waive to induct Howe in 1972?

The three-year waiting period. The honour for a finished career proved premature: a year later he came out of retirement and played seven more seasons as a Hall of Famer.

Which waterway does the Gordie Howe International Bridge cross?

Detroit River. The bridge joins Windsor, Ontario, to the American city where the Canadian starred, and the prime minister who named it said Howe had built goodwill between the two countries.

Which chapter of Howe's life does the 2013 film starring Michael Shanks dramatise?

His WHA comeback. The film follows 1973-74, when he quit a front-office job at 45 and joined his two teenage sons in a new league.

Howe's brother Vic played 33 NHL games for which team, whose camp Gordie quit at 15?

Rangers. Gordie went to New York's training camp in Winnipeg but left early, homesick; Vic made the same team in the 1950s, while his brother was winning scoring titles for a rival.

Where were Gordie and Colleen Howe's ashes interred in September 2016?

At his hometown statue. He had lived in the United States for most of his life, but the couple's ashes were taken back to Canada and laid beneath the bronze outside the city's arena.

Mark Howe was 16 when he won Olympic hockey silver for the United States at which Winter Games?

Sapporo. Mark was born in Michigan, yet two years after that 1972 silver for the Americans he wore Canada's sweater instead, on a line with his father.

What signing bonus did the 16-year-old Howe get from the NHL club that signed him in 1944?

A team jacket. It was the whole of the bonus, yet he went on to give the club 25 seasons and four Stanley Cups.

Which coach picked the 51-year-old Howe for the 1980 NHL All-Star Game?

Scotty Bowman. He chose Howe as a salute to his long career, and years later, as the coach with the most wins in NHL history, he called him the best player ever.

In which Nebraska city did the 17-year-old Howe turn professional in 1945, with the minor-league Knights?

Omaha. One season with the Knights was enough: a year later, at 18, he was playing for the parent club in the NHL.

What was unusual about how Howe shot the puck?

He was ambidextrous. Sticks then had straight blades, and at the camp where he was signed he caught the coaches' eye by shooting from one side, then the other, on successive rushes.

Where did Howe meet his future wife Colleen, whom he married in 1953?

A bowling alley. Colleen went on to run the family's business affairs and negotiate her husband's contracts, as one of the first women to work as a sports agent.

Which defenceman was one of two players ranked above Howe on The Hockey News's 1998 list of the 100 greatest?

Bobby Orr. The list put Howe third and made him the right winger on its all-time first team, yet the man it ranked first has called Howe the greatest player ever.