Hockey legend Gordie Howe dies at 88

(Bloomberg) -- Gordie Howe, who helped lead the Detroit Red Wings to four Stanley Cup titles in six years and earned the nickname "Mr. Hockey" during his record 26 seasons in the National Hockey League, has died. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by the Red Wings in a Twitter post. The team didn't provide details. Howe, who had dementia, suffered a severe stroke on October 2014.

Named the NHL's most valuable player six times, Howe set a slew of records that stood until Wayne Gretzky, who idolized him growing up, shattered them in the 1990s. One was most career goals in regular-season play: Howe, with 801, trails only Gretzky (894). Howe's record of playing in 1,767 regular-season NHL games still stands.

Where Gretzky was renowned for his graceful skating and prolific scoring, Howe had an additional dimension: He was his own on-ice enforcer. His aggressive play inspired the flip expression "Gordie Howe hat trick," which, unlike a real hat trick (making three goals in one game), means scoring a goal, recording an assist and getting into a fight.

"Dad's mind-set on the ice was different than most anybody else I've ever met," his son, Mark Howe, told ESPN. "He can be cruel. I've seen him be vicious. I've seen him hurt people and I used to think, 'Wow, it's like he meant to do it.'"

Remarkable Endurance

Few athletes, in any sport, could compete with Howe for longevity. He retired in 1971 after 25 years with the NHL's Red Wings and was inducted into the sport's Hall of Fame the following year. In 1973, at 45, he returned to the ice, joining his sons, Mark and Marty Howe, on the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association, a short-lived competitor to the NHL. The Aeros won consecutive championships, and Howe was named league MVP in 1974.

Howe and his sons moved in 1977 to the New England Whalers, which merged into the NHL as the Hartford Whalers before the 1979-1980 season, giving Howe one final year in the sport's premier league. That season, he scored 15 goals and registered 26 assists in 80 games, and the Whalers made the playoffs, losing in the first round.

All told, he scored 174 goals in the World Hockey Association.

A panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press in 1999 chose Gretzky as the greatest hockey player of the 20th century, just ahead of Howe, who earned the same number of points but three fewer first-place votes.

Making Sacrifices

Asked in 2008 how he played for so long, Howe said, "The love of the game, I think, and the willingness to sacrifice a few things for it."

Gordon Howe was born March 31, 1928, in Floral, Saskatchewan, and grew up in nearby Saskatoon, the sixth of nine children of Albert and Catherine Howe.

In his 1999 memoir, Howe described a difficult life in Depression-era Saskatoon, with his father, a laborer, often away from home to work. At 5, Howe got his first ice skates when a pair turned up in a bag of used clothing his mother purchased.

"Hockey became a sort of sanctuary for me," he wrote. "I played every day when I was growing up. We had neighbors that told my mom they remember me as a boy skating for hours around a local backyard rink, repeating over and over again little drills that I invented for myself."

He played goalie and defense before finding his spot at forward. He was a fixture at right wing in the NHL, and could shoot equally well left-handed and right-handed. At 16, he was invited by a Red Wings scout to the team's training camp in Windsor, Ontario. Following a minor-league season in Omaha, Nebraska, he played his first NHL game in 1946, at 18.

'Production Line'

Starting in 1949-1950, the Red Wings won four Stanley Cup titles in six years, largely behind the work of the team's celebrated "Production Line" -- Howe and fellow Hall of Famers Ted Lindsay and Sid Abel, which became Howe, Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio after Abel was traded in 1952.

Howe almost didn't live to contribute to that Red Wings dynasty.

In the opening round of the 1950 playoffs, he raced toward Ted Kennedy of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who was in the corner with the puck. Seconds before impact, Kennedy pulled up, and Howe went sprawling head-first into the boards. He slumped to the ice with a fractured skull and an injury to his brain.

Doctors said Howe was lucky to escape with his life. He attended the team's decisive seventh game of that year's Stanley Cup finals, against the New York Rangers, in street clothes. After the Red Wings scored in double overtime to win the championship, Detroit's fans beckoned him to center ice.

League Leader

He returned the next season no worse for wear, leading the league with 86 points -- 43 goals, 43 assists.

He again scored 86 points -- 47 goals, 39 assists -- and was named league MVP in the Red Wings' historic 1951-1952 season, which culminated with a perfect 8-0 postseason and a Stanley Cup.

After scoring a career-high 49 goals in 1952-1953, Howe was part of Red Wings teams that won back-to-back titles in 1953-1954 and 1954-1955. Detroit wouldn't celebrate another Stanley Cup until the 1996-1997 season.

Howe took a front-office job with the Red Wings after his first retirement in 1971 before deciding that his place was on the ice.

Howe's wife Colleen, who was his agent, founded a junior hockey team in Detroit and was known as "Mrs. Hockey," died in 2009. The couple had four children: daughter Cathy Howe Purnell and sons Murray, Marty, and Mark, who played for teams including the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings and was inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011.

--With assistance from Eben Novy-Williams.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Arnold in Washington at larnold4bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Charles W. Stevens at cstevensbloomberg.net Steven Gittelson