Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
Exp:
Mike Rogers reminisces about his days as Gordie Howe's teammate
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We’re playing against the Winnipeg Jets one night, against (Anders) Hedberg, (Bobby) Hull and (Ulf) Nilsson. In Hartford. They’re beating us like 6-2. I’m sitting beside Gordie on the bench and he says, ‘Know what, Mike, I’ve had enough.’ And I’m like ‘I have, too, Gordie, but what are we going to do about it?’
“He goes out on the ice, next shift, and Hedberg and Nilsson, all of a sudden, are both headed to the dressing room to get stitched. And Bobby’s bleeding. Gordie finally gets a penalty for slicing Bobby. Then gets two more for complaining to the official about why he was getting a penalty. So, unsportsmanlike.
“He gets back to the bench, I’m sitting beside him again and I say ‘Gordie, that was unbelievable. THREE of them.’ And he says ‘Yeah. Coulda been worse.’ I say: ‘Whaddaya mean?’ And he says: ‘Well, I like Bobby so I only cut him a little bit.’
“A LITTLE bit?!
“But that’s how precise he was with his stick. He was mad at the way the game was going and he was going to do something about it. Just blew me away.
“He had this aura about him. And, really, the last thing you’re going to do is fight a 50-year-old man. But I think if you’d asked, 99 per cent of the guys would’ve said they didn’t want to fight Gordie Howe. Precisely because they didn’t want to get beat up by a 50-year-old man.”
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At such times, hard times, we tend to glance back. Remember those slope shoulders, the body of a blacksmith. The power. The glory. Even at 50, in Hartford, when Rogers was a star-struck teammate in Connecticut.
“His nickname, even then, was Power. And there’s a reason he was called that. You’d look at him and go ‘Wow!’ He commands so much respect,” said Rogers.
“I thought of him as Superman. When we’d go in the dressing room and he took off his suit, I expected to see this cape and this S on his chest. There was this presence he had. Walking into a room, stepping on the ice … it was Gordie Howe. He never disappointed. And for how tough and how mean you heard he was on the ice, and how great he was as a player, he was always a kid at heart.
“He just reeked hockey. He was what hockey should be about.”
Wow. The fact he's still alive after 3 strokes in 2 months at the age of 86 is pretty miraculous in itself. Apparently though, he's had 8-10 of them this year: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=741724
It looks like he had a stroke on Nov 29th that was minor and was okay after that. Then the one yesterday which was major.
Perhaps he is immortal or something. That is almost medically unbelievable.
"It scares the daylight out of me," she said, adding that she told him Monday night to "stop pulling these games on me. He gave me a smile. His sense of humour is intact."
Apparently Gordie is making a miraculous recovery, thanks to a stem cell trial.
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He had a two-day, non-surgical treatment that included neural stem cells injected into the spinal canal and mesenchymal stem cells by intravenous infusion.
For the first time since the stroke, Howe has been able to walk with minimal effort and converse comfortably with family.
Stem cells. It's nuts. There's a guy at my gym that could hardly walk a few months ago. Went to Mexico, had stem cells from his nasal passage and hip injected into his messed up knee. He's riding a bike and running already.
