Mr. Hockey returns home: Gordie Howe honored at Saskatoon tribute dinner

SASKATOON – Less than four months before, he’d had a stroke. He couldn’t move his right side. No one knew if he would make it, let alone make it here for a dinner in his honor. Now his sons Mark and Marty were on stage in the center of a packed ballroom, unwrapping a sign for an arena to be named for him. Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Hull were up there waiting.
 
Slowly, carefully, Gordie Howe climbed the steps. With an image of his younger self projected on the wall, smiling, healthy, larger than life in his Detroit Red Wings uniform, the 86-year-old shuffled under the spotlight to that tune by Big Bob and The Dollars. Gordie Howe is the greatest of them all … The greatest of them all … Yes, the greatest of them all … On their feet, straining for glimpses, trying to snap pictures, people clapped and cheered and chanted.

“Gor-die!”

“Gor-die!”

“Gor-die!”

Finally, Howe sat down, and the ovation faded. A lone voice yelled, “We love you, Gordie!” Howe’s face lit up with a smile, and he held out those huge hands as if to give a hug.

“He knew what was going on,” Hull said. “When he heard the cheers, he knew they were for him. I could see it in his eyes.”

The Kinsmen Club of Saskatoon has held sports celebrity dinners for 55 years, hosting stars from Bobby Orr to Bo Jackson, raising money for local charities. A few years ago, Gretzky was on the marquee. Howe was there. So was Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But the Kinsmen had never seen anything like Friday night – 172 tables, about 1,500 people and hopefully a net of about $500,000 for those in need.

[Related: Gordie Howe tribute dinner: The stories and highlights]

This is the home of Mr. Hockey. This is where he grew up during the Depression as the sixth of nine children. This is where he learned to skate on every frozen surface imaginable – icy roads, backyard rinks, the Hudson Bay Slough, the South Saskatchewan River. This is where he built his legs carrying pails of water to a house with no indoor plumbing, his hands carrying 90-pound bags of cement at work. This is where he laid the foundation of his legend.

And this might have been the last chance to see him.

“If that was his last hurrah,” Hull said, “it was a great one.”

* * * * *

Gordie Howe lost his beloved wife, Colleen, in 2009 after she suffered from Pick’s disease, a form of dementia. He has suffered from dementia himself the past few years, living with his four children – Cathy, Mark, Marty and Murray – on a rotating basis.

He turned 86 last year. He had outpatient surgery for spinal stenosis. He had mini-strokes. He had a major stroke Oct. 26 while staying at Cathy’s home in Lubbock, Texas, and his sons rushed to his side, fearing the worst.

The big, strong athlete couldn’t move. The funny, quick-witted man couldn’t speak. He rallied for a couple of weeks, but then his condition deteriorated. When his caregivers would come for therapy, he would just close his eyes. He wanted nothing to do with it.

“I think kind of his will to live had waned considerably,” Mark said. “Along with that went his personality. Along with that went an awful lot of things.”

His caregivers had him in a medically induced coma in mid-November.

“They said, ‘It’s time to just let him pass’, ” Mark said. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t think anybody knows my father better than me’. I said, ‘I’ll make that decision on my own’. So I took Dad off all his meds, and I think it was about three days later, he started to come out, and you could still see there was a little fire in his belly.”

After hearing about Gordie in the media, representatives from a company called Stemedica contacted the Howe family about adult stem cell treatment. Murray, a radiologist, was skeptical. The treatment is unproven and controversial. But the Howes were desperate to give Gordie some quality of life, and they decided to take a leap of faith.

They loaded him on a plane in Lubbock, using a wheelchair that fit down the aisle and kept him strapped across his arms, chest and legs. Marty called it “the Hannibal Lecter chair”.

“All he needed was the mask,” Marty said.

[Watch: Gordie Howe homecoming | Saskatoon celebrates hockey hero]

They raced to make a connection, landed in San Diego and drove to Tijuana, Mexico, where he had neural stem cells injected into his spinal column Dec. 8 and mesenchymal stem cells by intravenous infusion the next day.

“It’s more of a miracle than anything else,” Marty said. “He went from not being able to move his arms and not being able to walk to being able to stand up within nine hours. The doctor calls it the awakening after the treatment. His body was working. He wanted to get up. He wanted out of bed – now.”

When he flew back to Lubbock, Gordie didn’t need the Hannibal Lecter chair. He walked to his seat under his own power. Soon he was able to walk without aid, go to the mall, go out to lunch.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the …” his therapist said.

“Bush,” Gordie finished.

Gordie regained 21 pounds. He regained some semblance of his life. At one point, Mark was trying to get him to sit down. He told him a chair had his name written all over it. He looked at the chair closely and said, “No, it doesn’t”.

“If anybody knows him, that’s his personality,” Mark said. “He’s a jovial, joking kind of guy. He has his good days and not-so-good days, but on his good days, yeah, I mean, his personality is there. It’s alive and well. That’s how we know Dad’s still with us.”

Gordie lost his brother Vic last Saturday, and he broke down. But in a way, that was a good sign because it showed things were getting through. The Howes hope he will keep improving. If he does, he probably will return to Tijuana for a second treatment in a couple of months.

“Nobody’s more proud than my father,” Mark said. “I witnessed a lot of that through the trials and tribulations of his health issues. I’ve watched him cry, and you don’t see that from Gordie Howe. So that’s how much it’s greatly affected him. So it’s important to us.”

* * * * *

The Red Wings once held “Gordie Howe Night” at Olympia Stadium. According to his autobiography, “Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe, My Story,” they gave toys to his kids. They gave him clothes, a vacation and a car with a surprise inside – his parents. Proud, emotional, he grabbed the microphone and told the crowd: “It’s a long way from Saskatoon.”
 
That was in March 1959. He was in his 13th NHL season. He had won four Stanley Cups and four Hart Trophies by then – already a great career. But he would go on to win two more Harts in 12 more seasons with the Red Wings. He would come out of retirement to play six more years in the WHA and one more year in the NHL with his sons Mark and Marty. He wouldn’t retire until he was 52, when he held the NHL records for goals (801) and points (1,850).

Vicious on the ice, he was gentle off the ice. Shy growing up, he was a man of the people. He would take a picture with you – and at the last second put his elbow up an inch from your nose. He made public appearances for income and charity, serving as an ambassador for the game. He has slowed down in recent years, but the Kinsmen dinner was fitting, full circle, extra special under the circumstances.

“For him to actually be here I think is quite incredible,” Mark said.

“We didn’t think he’d be able to make this,” Marty said, “or even if he’d still be alive.”

It was a long way back to Saskatoon. The plan was to fly from Lubbock on a private plane to make the trip as easy as possible, but there was a mechanical problem, and a diversion to Dallas, and a four-hour delay, and a plane change, and a stop in North Dakota, and another plane change. Gordie is usually sound asleep by 8 p.m. He didn’t get into Saskatoon until 10 p.m. Thursday. He felt playful enough to threw a fake elbow at someone in the hotel elevator, but he slept most of the day Friday.

“It just wore him out,” Marty said. “He’s recovering still.”

Mark and Marty said that at first Friday night, Gordie didn’t seem to absorb everything – all the people, the red and white lighting, the No. 9 projected on screens and the walls all around the room. But he received a standing ovation as he made his way to his table. He saw his two surviving sisters, Helen and Vi. He climbed on stage with his three sons, Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Hull, Brett Hull, Dennis Hull and emcee Kelly Chase. As the night went on, he became more aware. He listened to Wayne and Bobby talk about meeting him – Bobby grabbing his hands and saying, “My inspiration.” He laughed at some stories by Dennis. He stayed alert even though he was up far later than usual for the second straight night.

“Dad was so totally focused and so engaged and eyeball-to-eyeball,” Mark said. “You could see it. You could see the emotions and stuff. And he laughed. He was in tears laughing so hard a couple times. He was totally engaged with what they were saying.”

At the end of the dinner, the Great One gave Mr. Hockey a check for $25,000 for dementia research and said: “He is, he was, he will always be the greatest.” With that, Gordie Howe left the stage. He went down to a quiet hallway and sat on a chair. A few people took pictures with him – family, friends, workers.

He might not remember this. But he was in the moment, and the Howes will have a tape of it to play back for him over and over, so he can hear the cheers again, so he can hear the stories again, so he can feel the love.

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