Gordie Howe is a living legend for NHL fans across many generations

The gold standard for hockey longevity is Gordie Howe, whose National Hockey League career spanned five decades, writes Rob McKenzie.

Fans wave "Get Well Gordie" signs for Detroit Red Wings legend Gordie Howe during the first period of an NHL hockey game between the Red Wings and Los Angeles Kings on Friday, Oct. 31, 2014, in DetroiShow more

The gold standard for hockey longevity is Gordie Howe, whose first National Hockey League game was on October 16, 1946, and last on April 6, 1980.

He was valuable to the end.

I remember seeing him play – this would be around 1978, the year he turned 50 – at the old Winnipeg Arena, his New England Whalers visiting my Winnipeg Jets during Howe’s sojourn in the upstart World Hockey Association. My dad and I had front-row seats along the corner.

My one distinct memory from that game is of the silver-haired Howe crunching some young punk into the boards. He flattened the guy. The look on the Jets player’s face was like something out of a cartoon. It was pain in two dimensions, both compressed and spread out against the glass. You could virtually hear the air fizzing out of him.

It was not as if Howe had taken a big, long run to make the hit. He just turned those oak-tree shoulders into the guy and then tried to push him not into the glass so much as through it. It was a surprisingly smooth motion.

I saw Howe again in December of 2008 at a game at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, again with my dad, but this time on my tab. Howe was sitting at a table signing autographs for US$75 (Dh275) a pop. That is almost as much per signature as he received per game in his first season.

Now 86, Howe had a serious stroke on October 26. At last report he was recuperating in Texas at the home of his daughter, Cathy.

It is difficult to imagine time getting the better of Gordie Howe.

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