Gordie: A Hockey Legend: An Unauthorized Biography of Gordie Howe

by Roy MacSkimming

Before Gretzky, before Russians played in the NHL, before multimillion-dollar salaries, there was Gordie the greatest star ever to play hockey.

Genres: Hockey, Sports, Biography, Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

Reviews

[Michael Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would really give this 3.5 stars.
Was an interesting insight into the life of Mr. Hockey and how his “aw shucks” off-ice personality was in complete contrast with his competitiveness on the ice. His strong two-way approach to playing the game has rightly been immortalized with the “Gordie Howe hat-trick”. Many players can be finesse players and many can be tough players in the game…but no one could be both quite like Gordie. Very glad I got to see him play (on TV), and even happier to have a hockey card in my collection of him.
To read about how other players viewed him as a person and a player was likely my biggest take-away from this book. It seems that players like Gordie and other greats of the past who played more for the love of the game and competition amongst their peers will never been seen again in hockey…as it appears more and more players are just jumping from team to team for the most money they can get. However, as shown in this book, what really happens behind the scenes is never really known to the fans, despite all the ways the media tries to dig up the “truth”.
The game has certainly changed over the years, and people will argue forever as to who the best players ever were. One thing that will never change is that through the years Gordie Howe will always be mentioned in those conversations.

[Tyler Dyck · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read at times, this more of a Howe-centric history of the Detroit Red Wings than an in depth analysis of one of the greatest hockey players of all time. I would have liked to see more of a deep dive in to the life and psyche of Gordie Howe.

[Mark Nenadov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a pretty good window into Gordie Howe’s career. Definitely very Red Wing centric. It felt like mostly this was a book about the 1950s Red Wings, his time in the WHA and post retirement is very “broad rush”.

[Joseph Fountain · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review of: Gordie: A Hockey Legend

[Hollywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good book about Gordie Howe. Amazing that he played hockey to the age of 50. Would recommend if you know nothing about him and provides a great in-bias opinion of his life

[Mark Sumpter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chewing nails, spitting bullets, and having fun... "there's a little thing called fun. That's why we call hockey a game." Really a good, fun read. Well written.

[Maria Gerardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned so much about hockey before I knew hockey.
There are very few professional athletes like Gordie Howe anymore.
Wonderful tribute

[NickJ English9 · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the book, Gordie: A Hockey Legend: An Unauthorized Biography of Gordie Howe by Macskimming, it tells the stories of Gordie Howe’s career. Gordie is one of the greatest hockey players to ever touch the ice. In the regular seasons, he had 801 goals, 1049 assists, 1850 points, 1685 penalty minutes, and played 1767 games in the NHL. He played with other NHL legends like Red Kelly and Ted Lindsay. He had a fierce rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens and Maurice Richard. Gordie often got into fights with opposing players. He was a tall and strong skater with quick hands and a hard and accurate shot. He could shoot the puck with one hand faster than some players that had two hands. Gordie or Mr. Hockey played for 5 professional teams including the Omaha Knights, Detroit Red Wings, Houston Aeros, New England Whalers, and Hartford Whalers. He played for 32 seasons and even played with two of his sons, Marty and Mark. The hockey prodigy from Saskatoon would join a hockey dynasty in Detroit, be on one of the best teams ever, and be on one of the best lines called The Production Line. Gordie’s career had a lot of ups and downs because of trade loving Jack Adams, but Gordie’s natural talent and practice usually prevailed. The four time Stanley Cup winner, 23 time all star, and Ambidextrous shooting winger will forever be remembered as a hockey legend.
Gordie: A Hockey Legend: An Unauthorized Biography of Gordie Howe by Roy Macskimming is an amazing tale of the legendary hockey prodigy, Gordie Hockey. The Author filled the stories with true and crazy facts. When the author explains a goal, they tell exactly what happened and how people felt about it, from many perspectives. “Delvecchio, retrieving the puck from a goalmouth scramble in front of Sawchuck, put a perfect pass onto Howe’s tape at centre ice; Howe skated across the Montreal blueline, drifted over to the right boards, apparently too far to do any damage, then delicately feathered a pass through the defensemen’s sates back to Delvecchio, cruising in on goal, who neatly backhanded it past Plante” (Macskimming 124). The author paints a picture in your head using good vocabulary and describing in full detail. The Themes of the book include love, loss, hockey, friendship, hatred, and winning. In the NHL at that time, all you did was win and want to win. To win you need to make friends, lose connects, hate other teams, and want to win. The pace and flow of the book was quick because of the never ending facts and background information given by the author. The author used real dialogue from interviews and other sources. All the dialogue was either a narrator or the actual people talking about the events they witnessed. The mood and tone was informative because it is a biography about the life and career of Gordie Howe. The author explained everything for a reason to perfection and made the boring stories into interesting stories. All of the characters are real historical figures from the time period. The Author made the real characters, even more real and interesting. I absolutely loved the Gordie: A Hockey Legend: An Unauthorized Biography of Gordie Howe by Roy Macskimming!

[George Majchrzak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I waited until the announcement of Mr. Hockey's passing to pick this book up again. I bought it in 1996 from the Woodville Mall's B. Dalton and then skimmed it over a chili burger at Tom's Family Restaurant, my first job. And now, all four are gone, yet Howe outlived the others. So my history with the book, coupled with my lifelong love of the game and my Red Wings fandom, did bring a sense of nostalgia to the proceedings. Fortunately, the book is good enough to stand on its own merit.

The book starts with a Hero's Journey structure: just a farm boy from Floral overcomes the odds (a high school drop out whose father "... never thought he'd amount to anything") to become one of the sport's greats, survives adversity (a possibly-fatal, certainly-possible career-ending collision with the boards), and verily sips from Lord Stanley's vaunted chalice. Which, of course, he did, four times in his first nine years in fact. But therein lies the challenge for MacSkimming: how to keep the story about one of the greatest athletes ever to live engaging? It could get boring quickly, and if you've ever read Gretzky's autobiography, you know there are points of "Well, where do you go from here?"

But Howe's humility and country boy shyness help in that regard. There is his meeting and courting with Mrs. Hockey, his late wife Colleen, illustrating a depth to Howe that goes beyond his Hockey God status. And then there's the contrast of his personality with both Habs great, Maurice "Rocket" Richard, and Howe's Wings linemate, "Terrible" Ted Lindsay. Richard was known for his steely-eyed gaze as he bore down on opposition goaltenders, and even the occasional violent outburst that could, and did, result in a Montreal riot. And Lindsay was outspoken, arrogant, and abrasive, the perfect foil to the aw-shucks underlying character of Howe. Those aspects of the book keep it moving as it transitions from Howe's early championship days, to his later king-of-the-sport reign.

MacSkimming's writing is humorous and clean, but I can't help but wonder, as he himself does in his epilogue, how much more insight a memoir could offer. Regardless, this is a book for hockey fans, especially those with historical interests. And considering Mr. Hockey has now left us, a book like this is a good place to start learning about one of our sport's greats.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that this biography highlighted a lot of Gordie Howe's life but it could have been more detailed in some of Gordie Howe's earlier life.

[Russ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roy MacSkimming's unauthorized biography of Detroit Redwings star and hockey legend Gordie Howe is a pleasant, fairly informative read. It may not dig as deep as other biographies, but anyone who reads it will get the basics and most important details of Gordie Howe's life and career.

The most fascinating thing about this book, to me, is the level of detail about the behind-the-scenes operations of the 1950s Detroit Redwings hockey club. General Manager Jack Adams is the most colorful character among the various coaches, owners and other team staff. His iron grip on the organization and its players proved to be his undoing after a series of incredibly stupid trades. But, after all the drama and turmoil, Gordie continued to do his best for the team until his first retirement in the early 1970s.

Considering what I've written above, this book functions not only as a biography of Howe but as an account of the legendary Redwings teams and the men who played for them. Defenseman Red Kelly gets an entire chapter to himself, and the stories about colorful forward Ted Lindsay will make a reader want to pick up a biography of Lindsay right after they finish the biography of Howe. It was heartwarming for me to read about how close these men were while playing together, and it was heartbreaking to hear about how they were cheated by the owners they played hockey for.

This is a good read for any hockey fan. Other biographies may dig deeper into the Howe legend, but this is as good a place as any to start.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of the life and career of Gordie Howe. It spends a lot of time detailing how nice Howe is as a man on off the ice and how aggressive he was on the ice. No surprise there, but I would have liked more detail into Howe's life away from hockey. At times it reads more like a biography of Jack Adams. I enjoyed it, but will be looking for a more definitive biography of Mr Hockey.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book chronicles several of Mr. Hockey's seasons and has some rare photos not seen before.

[Vader · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish

[Bryan]

it is awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!