Once the code of conduct in the National Hockey League All-Star Game was
”an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
Today the prevailing philosophy seems to be ”turn the other cheek-and try not to get that close again.”
The malice that is still displayed so frequently during the regular season and becomes blatant in the playoffs undoubtedly will be conspicuous by its absence in Saturday afternoon`s All-Star Game at the Stadium.
”Now, the attitude is `skate as best you can, and don`t get anybody hurt,` ” said Gordie Howe, whose collection of All-Star records includes the one for the most penalty minutes in All-Star history-27 minutes in 23 games.
”For the most part, it`s a skating exhibition. You see Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux out there, and nobody touches them. Mario has a reach from here to yesterday. You let him alone the way they did last year, and it`s no wonder he winds up scoring four goals.”
But it wasn`t that way back in 1946, when Howe broke into the NHL. In those days, the All-Star Game began the season and pitted the previous year`s Stanley Cup winner against the best players from the other five teams.
”We`d say, `Somebody go out there and nail somebody-let`s get things going,` ” Howe recalled. ”Bill Mosienko from Chicago got his ankle fractured when he was checked into the boards the first year they had an All-Star Game
(1947). It was that rough.
”There was a lot of animosity. I got in a fight in one of the first All- Star Games I played in.”
In 1950 and `51, the format was changed and the first team in the end-of- season balloting met the second team. Both were low-scoring games that ended in ties, 2-2 and 1-1. Fans preferred seeing the Stanley Cup champion take on the best players from the rest of the teams, and the league restored that format in 1953.
It stayed that way until 1969, when the game became an East-West confrontation, a forerunner to the present Wales-Campbell Conference get-together, first held in 1975.
”The years Detroit was in it, we wanted to make darn sure we won that game,” said Howe.
”The other years, when we were with the All-Stars, the attitude was,
`we`re teammates today; we go back to hating them tomorrow.`
”The trainers were very careful about the way they put people in the dressing room. Ted Lindsay, Red Kelly, myself and the other Red Wings all would be right next to one another. The Chicago players all would be together, and so on.”
In Howe`s eyes, in those post-World War II winters, the players skating for Chicago, Montreal, Boston, Toronto and New York were the nastiest human beings this side of Josef Stalin.
”We faced one another 14 times a season,” he said. ”I used to go to the rink wondering how I was going to get that guy who got me last night.”
Howe looks back and finds it all rather strange in the present-day context.
”Expansion, the All-Star Games, the fund-raising, the banquets have changed all of that,” he said. ”You sit down and start talking to a guy, and it just completely turns your mind around. You say to yourself, `Hey, that guy isn`t so bad after all-I kind of like him.` You get to know people, and it`s interesting.”
Playing with the likes of Bobby Orr and Gretzky also gave Howe a better appreciation of their tremendous ability.
”I admired Orr when I played against him, but I never knew how great he actually was until I played with him for the first time in an All-Star Game,” said Howe. ”He`d rush down the ice and you`d think you`d be caught on a three-on-two break, but he was so doggone quick that he would get back on defense. And he had the ability to read the play.
”Gretzky has that ability, too. But he`s different than Orr. Everything Bobby did you saw and you marveled. With Wayne, it escapes you. He knows where everybody is, and it`s like watching a chess match. He just automatically seems to make all the right moves.
”When I was in the WHA, we played a series of All-Star Games against the Soviets in Edmonton. I was Wayne`s right wing, and my son, Mark, was his left wing. Wayne was only in his teens, but it astounded me to see him play the way he did. You can`t really explain how he does it.”
Back in the old days, Montreal`s Maurice Richard, Boston`s Milt Schmidt and Chicago`s Bobby Hull were on Howe`s hit list. Now he speaks of them with affection and admiration.
”Rocket Richard, in my book, always will be one of the greatest to play this game,” said Howe. ”And Milt Schmidt is one of my favorites because of the way he played.
”Bobby Hull was a very honest hockey player. No matter what, he gave his best every night. He was so powerful. You could read and know what he was going to do, and you still couldn`t stop him because he was that strong. Very seldom did he use that strength to intimidate people. But you saw what he could do when he was provoked-you saw the way he ripped into Bugsy (Bryan)
Watson.”
Of all the hockey games that Howe played in, the one he cherishes most is the 1980 All-Star Game in Detroit, when he was concluding his career in Hartford and closing in on his 52nd birthday.
”I`ve thanked Scotty Bowman (the Wales Conference coach) a hundred times for his thoughtfulness and kindness to include me, even though my numbers that year weren`t there to justify it,” said Howe.
”When they introduced me and I heard the Detroit fans (who gave him a thunderous ovation), I was having a little problem keeping my emotions from showing. I went to Lefty Wilson, the trainer who had been there when I was there, and said, `Lefty, I need some help.` He cracked a joke, and that got me through it.
”In the game, I missed a shot on net-I was like a nervous kid. But I did manage to set up Real Cloutier for a goal.
”I`ll never forget that All-Star Game as long as I live. That one meant more to me than any other.”
And no matter what happens in the years to come, it`s safe to say Gordie Howe always will be the quintessential All-Star. He already was one of the game`s best players when Orr was born in 1948, and he was still skating in the NHL the season after Orr retired. He was a dominant player in three eras-postwar NHL, the golden years of the 1960s and the era of expansion.
”They ought to bottle his sweat,” King Clancy, the former NHL star who became an outstanding referee, once suggested. ”It would make a great liniment for hockey players.”
