This column first appeared in the Oct. 22, 1994 edition of The Citizen and is being republished in the wake of Howe's death.
Late at night, on a wind-swept sidewalk outside a store just vacated by a 1,000 other fans, I met my boyhood hero face to face.
Gordie Howe was at the new Zellers in Pine Centre Mall to sign autographs for two hours, although it ended up being four.
I stood off to the side and watched and waited for close to three hours as he signed his name to pictures, hockey cards, shirts, commemorative plates and hockey sticks.
The amount of people who came to see him was overwhelming.
I might have met him under different circumstances, though, but that's the way things go.
Two days earlier, Zellers had needed someone to give Gordie a ride to Likely -- about 2 1/2 hours southeast of Prince George -- and as crazy as it sounds, I said, "Sure!"
I was very disappointed when Colleen Howe -- Gordie's wife -- phoned our house the next day and said the people Gordie was going to visit we're picking him up.
You see, Gordie Howe has a special place in my life because my parents -- well, actually my dad -- named me after him.
In the fall of 1964, when Gordie was still going strong with 26 goals and 47 assists for the Detroit Red Wings, I was christened Gordon Howard.
And ever since I was old enough to know who Gordie Howe was, I have been fascinated by the man and his longevity -- the man whose professional hockey career spanned four decades.
The funny thing is I never played hockey.
Dad emigrated to Canada from Holland in the late 50s and upon landing in Toronto fell in love with Canada's game.
He was a true blue Maple Leafs fan, of course, but often told stories of Gordie Howe, who he considered the best hockey player ever.
Dad loved Gordie's legendary combination of skills -- scorer, playmaker and tough man.
But while growing up in Prince Rupert and Terrace, my brother Robert and I never played organized hockey.
Maybe Dad just couldn't see himself getting up at 6 in the morning to hustle us off to the arena or maybe it cost too much.
I don't know. I never asked.
That's not to say we never played the game.
I bet the two of us played as much or more road hockey than any kid in Canada. When we moved to Terrace when I was 10 years old, we lived on a gravel road, and I can still remember the fights that ensued when someone broke the slap-shot rule and somebody ended up with a face full of rocks.
And in the winter, we played hours of shinny hockey in a frozen back eddy on the river behind our house or on the frozen ponds in the hollows of the fields that surrounded our small farm.
Unlike Gordie, our game stayed on the pond.
His career when it finally ended, was a very long way from Saskatoon's windswept prairie.
Gordie Howe scored seven goals and pocketed 15 assists in his first year with the Detroit Red Wings, and three decades later he had amassed 801 goals and 1,049 assists for a total of 1,850 NHL points.
When you add his point totals from the World Hockey Association, it amounts to a grand total of 2,358 points with 975 goals and 1,383 points.
He played his last NHL season with the Hartford Whalers when he was 51 years old.
A kid could have had a worse hero.
Harry Neale, who coached the New England Whalers, tells the story of Gordie going for his 1,000th career goal in Dick Irvin's Behind the Bench.
Between shifts, Howe, by this time 49 years old, sat on the bench with his left hand in a bucket of warm water for his arthritis and his right hand in a bucket of ice water for an injury.
He wouldn't quit until he scored that goal.
When I shook his still-beefy hands, I told him I was named after him.
He chuckled and said, "Yeah, they told me that."
Standing just outside of the Zeller's entrance, waiting beside the old pickup truck that would take him to his hotel, I told him how my Dad had come to Canada, fell in love with hockey and the Maple Leafs and Gordie Howe.
"We never realized how many lives we've touched," he said.
I thought about it after and maybe he's right. Who can explain his popularity even now?
The lineup that extended right to the back of Zellers, included the very old and very young and everything in between.
They say he let some of his friends down back in the late 50s when they were trying to get the first players' association going. I don't know about that, or the claim he kept salaries down through his naivete.
One thing I do know is the man could play -- he loved to play the game.
When I asked him what it was like to play with his sons, he said he had taken them on two big fishing trips to get to know them because that's how he got to know his dad.
But he never imagined playing seven seasons of professional hockey with them.
Gordie asks me, "You're dad still alive?"
"Yeah," I say, kind of surprised.
Write down his name and address and I'll send him an autographed picture, he says.
So, I did.
Just as he's getting into his car he says across the wind, "Too bad I don't have a picture of me scoring on the Leafs."
Yeah, a kid could have a worse hero.
- Gordon Hoekstra is an award-winning reporter with the Vancouver Sun. Prior to joining the Sun in 2011, he worked for The Citizen for 19 years.
