I do have different views on Gordie Howe for sure. I think that Howe was a dominant player in the 50's using his skill set but also using his bigger size that was an advantage to him. No denying his greatness here. But, I wonder if he would have been successful if he wasn't such a dirty player. I think he would have been just as successful if he played the game legally because he was that good. So, in my view, his sneak attacks from behind on opponents to visciously cut them up was just a product of his meaness. In all the times I've watched Howe play live or on tape, I have yet to see him challenge or hit another player head on. To me, Howe played a cowardly type of game.
Its true that Howe had a reputation as one of the best fighters in the game. That comes from his one fight with Fontinato. Yes, he won the fight and hurt Fontinato but he was hurt himself in the fight. One Howe punch early broke Fontinato's nose and the Ranger player was fighting blindly. There are differing versions of how one-sided it really was.
But Howe fought so few times before that Fontinato fight and hardly ever after that.
And that is because of the opponents fearing Howe's sneaky stickwork more than anything else. It was truly something to be fearful of. Howe fought early in his career but did not always fare that well - and he fought smaller players almost everytime. When I show people video of Howe getting demolished in a fight with the much smaller Bill Juzda in 1952, they are surprised of course. After the Fontinato fight, Howe was challenged including one time with Orland Kurtenbach but Howe wouldn't drop his stick. For all of Howe's toughness, he didn't really act as a protector for smaller teammates. He did for Marty and Mark but not his other teammates.
And this 'Gordie Howe hat-trick' is a bunch of nonsense. Howe never did the feat himself.
As for Howe being screwed by Detroit management, that is true but mostly of his own doing. Howe has been portrayed as lacking intelligence because of his lack of education but I also think that he had a lack of courage to stand up to authority.
One thing that I wonder about is that Howe should have known what other players were making. I say that because he had Ted Lindsay as a teammate for so many years. They were close then and I find it hard to believe that Lindsay would have been too frightened to tell Howe what he was making.
This was around the time when Lindsay tried to set up the player's association in 1956. It was very courageous of Lindsay and others around the league to confront the NHL owners of the time. The association was effectively killed when Gordie Howe took the Red Wings out of the association after Lindsay was traded to Chicago.
Howe was the star and he was the one player who could have made a difference. But he turned his back on his fellow hockey players. The Detroit management, who had encouraged Howe to do that, still treated him badly financially.
It's well documented how bad the NHL owners were but Gordie Howe can only blame himself. He couldn't stand up to the ownership on his own and couldn't stand up to the ownership when he had all the players fighting along with him in the aborted organization.
Gordie Howe was a popular player among fans but he's not the type of player that I admire. Even today, in interviews, players are telling all kinds of stories of how viscious Howe was with his stick and elbows cutting players mostly when they weren't looking and mostly for no apparent reason. If another, lesser player, did those things, he would be villified - but not Howe. Even Mark Howe writes that his dad would not be able to play that way in today's hockey - the rules and opponents wouldn't allow it.
Bobby Hull, Maurice Richard, Bobby Orr and other truly great players were antogonized on the ice so much more than Howe was. No denying how great a hockey player Gordie Howe was but it seems to me that Howe had a 'free ride' in comparisons to what those other players had to put up with.
And, Gordie Howe has himself to blame for how badly he was treated financially by the Red Wings. Because he was so valuable a player, he was the one guy that actually could have challenged the owner - but I supposed he lacked the courage to do so. He never did like to face an opponent head on.
Oh how I would love for classichockey to get a crack at this.
