Mr. Hockey My Story (15 page)

I still shake my head when I think about how Jack Adams was able to take baseball away from me with nothing more than a simple telegram. But that’s how much control he had over his team. It chafed us, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. Whether he was the coach or general manager, he maintained something of a love–hate relationship with his players. It would be hard to
find a more frustrating boss. One minute he’d praise a guy for his effort, and the next he’d bench him for unknown reasons. He could be moody and unpredictable, and when he was angry he’d lash out at whoever was closest. Worst of all, he tried to exercise an unacceptable measure of control over the lives of his players. That’s what bothered me the most. On a professional level, some of his moves still baffle me to this day. Sometimes he would cut bait on a player he thought was past his prime, only to see that same guy return to torture us for years to come. That’s certainly what happened with Red Kelly, to name just one example. It didn’t matter to Mr. Adams, though. If he found even a hint of something he didn’t like, you were out the door.

To be fair, Mr. Adams did have his redeeming qualities, particularly when he was away from the arena. He had a strong work ethic and he tried to pass that along to his players. I credit him with instilling in me some of the discipline that helped me to succeed as a professional athlete. He was also the person who gave me a shot at the big leagues, which is something I’ll always appreciate. The press would occasionally speculate about how much I grew to dislike Mr. Adams over the years. We weren’t best friends, but then again that’s not really the relationship you need to have with your boss. If I were to try to encapsulate my feelings in a nutshell, I guess I’d say that I might have hated some of his actions, but I never hated him as a person.

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L
ongtime Red Wings fans have their own opinions on Jack Adams. On the plus side of the ledger, he gets a lot of credit for being the architect of our championship teams in the early 1950s. To be fair, it should be noted that he didn’t do it alone. Detroit’s
chief scout, Carson Cooper, for one, could pick a needle out of a haystack when it came to evaluating hockey talent. The criticisms of Trader Jack can be traced back to his propensity to make big roster moves at the expense of chemistry. They say it’s one of the reasons his teams didn’t often win back-to-back Stanley Cups. Personally, I don’t know if it’s that straightforward. Winning a championship in any sport isn’t exactly a cakewalk. It’s not like the other good teams in the league are ever going to just roll over. Toss in a few unlucky injuries and a bad bounce here or there and nothing is ever guaranteed. For the Red Wings, 1953 was one of those years.

Once again, we finished on top of the league, 15 points clear of the second-place Canadiens. We were also 21 points better than Boston, whom we were slotted to face in the semifinals of the playoffs. We had owned them in our head-to-head matchups during the regular season and were feeling confident going into the series. Boy, were we in for a surprise. The Bruins beat us in six games and, just like that, our season was over. As the defending Stanley Cup champions, to fall flat against a team we thought we thoroughly outclassed was obviously a big letdown. That season, it wasn’t my only disappointment.

If I had to choose my favorite thing in hockey, it would be assisting on a goal. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed putting the puck in the net, but making a great pass strikes a different type of chord. It’s like distilling what it means to be part of a team into a single action. When you help a teammate to score, he wins, you win, and so does the club. It’s like hitting the trifecta. As much as I always looked to make the best hockey play, at the end of the 1952–53 season my teammates were less interested in being set up and more concerned with helping me to score. I was having a great year shooting the puck. Every time I got a clean look, it seemed like the
puck found its way into the back of the net. In the third to last game of the season, I scored twice against Boston to put my tally at 49. I was 1 goal shy of the record set by the Rocket in 1945, with two games remaining. Everyone in the NHL knew that the Rocket took a lot of pride in that record, as well as in his status as the league’s top goal scorer. For the most part, I didn’t give too much thought to that sort of thing. I figured that if I played well, the team would win and everything else would fall into place. Given the rivalry between the Wings and the Canadiens, though, it would be a lie to say I didn’t want to break the Rocket’s record once I got close. We didn’t like the Habs and they didn’t like us. Taking away the Rocket’s record would have been a satisfying way to poke a stick in their eye. For his part, Jack Adams badly wanted to see it happen, as did Tommy Ivan and my teammates. In our penultimate game of the season, against the Black Hawks, Tommy gave me some extra shifts, but I came up empty. With one game left in the regular season, I remained stuck at 49 goals.

Our final game, at home against the Canadiens, had all of the elements needed to be fairly poetic. The press went into overdrive talking about the possibility of me breaking the record while skating against the Rocket himself. It was a nice thought, but when the puck dropped the game didn’t work out that way. Once again, Tommy had me on the ice for some extra shifts, but every time I jumped over the boards I found Montreal left winger Bert Olmstead attached to my hip like some sort of pesky shadow. I found out later that Dick Irvin told him to stick to me like glue. I think Irvin cared more about stopping me that night than he did about winning the game. At one point, I was at our net talking to Sawchuk during a break in the action, and Olmstead was right there with us. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t say a word. I almost have
to admire him for following his coach’s instructions to the letter. Even with Olmstead stalking me, I had a few chances on Gerry McNeil that night, but didn’t manage to put one by him. Irvin was overjoyed and, true to form, pretty obnoxious about his boys shutting me down that night. He slid across the ice and raised the Rocket’s arm as if he were still the heavyweight champion of the world. As it turned out, 49 goals ended up being the high-water mark in my career. Along with my 46 assists, I finished the season with 95 points, which was the highest total anyone had ever put up at that point. The funny thing is, I think I did get that 50th goal. In February we had a game in Boston. Late in the third period, Red Kelly fired a shot from the blue line that got past goalkeeper Jim Henry. I was pretty sure I tipped that shot in, and a lot of my teammates agreed, but the officials didn’t see it. At the time, I wasn’t as close to the 50 goal mark, so I wasn’t too concerned. But looking back, it would have been nice if that one had counted.

Some people, including Irvin, suggested that the reason we lost to Boston in the playoffs that year was because I was too tired from chasing the Rocket’s record during the regular season. I don’t really buy into that line of thinking. I might have taken a few more shifts, but for the most part I was just playing hockey as usual. I was still only twenty-five years old at that point, and my body recovered pretty quickly. Physically, I don’t remember running out of steam against the Bruins. Mentally, I can’t say that I recall the pressure being too hard to handle either. The chase for 50 goals that season certainly wasn’t anything compared to the pressure I felt in 1963 when I was closing in on the Rocket’s career total of 544. That was definitely more of a grind. Sometimes there’s just no convenient explanation for why teams lose. I still think we had a great squad in 1953. Rather than trying to figure out why we lost, credit should
really go to Boston for beating us. Unfortunately for the Bruins, they couldn’t keep it going in the next round. They ended up losing to the Canadiens in five games. It was Montreal’s third straight appearance in the finals, but their first Stanley Cup since 1946. We knew they’d be tough to beat in the following season. Then again, we knew we would be, too.

Seven

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rowing up, if hockey wasn’t my sole focus at any given time, it was close. It was a way of life for me from as far back as I can remember. As I kid, I can recall sitting at the kitchen table and writing out different signatures to try to figure out the best one to use once I became famous. When I finished, I tugged on the hem of my mom’s skirt and asked her to pick a favorite. She humored me and chose one with big loops on the “G” and the “H.” To this day, it’s the one I still use whenever I sign my name. Even as a fanciful child, though, I wasn’t interested in the perks of fame. I just figured that if I was going to play hockey for a living, I’d need a serviceable autograph. At sixteen, when the Red Wings wanted me to move to Galt to play on the practice squad, I said yes because I knew it would make me a better hockey player. I didn’t particularly want to leave my friends and family in Saskatoon, but when hockey
called, I always listened. For more than twenty years I was content to let hockey guide nearly all of my decisions. It was that way right up until the moment I met Colleen.

At some point, I suppose it happens to most everyone. Or at least it does if you’re lucky. You’re ticking along worrying only about yourself until one day you wake up and something’s different. One minute it was just you, and then suddenly all of your decisions are being made for two. The funny thing is how seamlessly this change comes about. Once I met Colleen, everything just sort of clicked into place. I’ll tell anyone who will listen that marrying her was the smartest thing I ever did. I wouldn’t say that hockey took a back seat to our marriage—that would be Jack Adams talking—but for the first time in my life I wanted to make room for something besides the game. As if that wasn’t enough, not long after we were hitched, Colleen and I had to start thinking for three. Our first child, Marty, was born on February 18, 1954. We named him after Marty Pavelich. There was no way to know it beforehand, but once Marty came along I realized I was born to be a family man. I’d guess that fathers from the beginning of time have been saying the same thing. Of course, most fathers don’t have a boss like Jack Adams. Trying to raise a family on his watch was easier said than done.

As much as I wanted to be there when our son was born, babies don’t care about clocks, calendars, or hockey schedules. The night Marty arrived, the Red Wings were on the road in Montreal. A bunch of smiling teammates gave me the news between periods. I gladly accepted the handshakes and “attaboys,” knowing full well that Colleen had done all of the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, the Canadiens didn’t feel like cooperating with what was otherwise a banner night for the Howe family. The headline in the next
morning’s paper read: howes have baby; red wings lose. I didn’t mind it so much, but Colleen thought the story implied that we’d lost because I was more focused on our baby than the game. Jack Adams, true to form, did his part to worsen her mood. The day Colleen and Marty were set to be released from the hospital coincided with the end of our road trip. I couldn’t wait to kiss my wife and meet my new baby boy, but unbeknownst to us, Mr. Adams had his own backward ideas. He called our doctor, Jim Matthews, and asked if Colleen could be kept in the hospital for one more day. Mr. Adams was afraid my mind wouldn’t be on that night’s game if Colleen and the baby came home. Jim, of course, was a doctor not a hockey player, and he had no problem telling Mr. Adams to go to hell. Still, the full Jack Adams experience wasn’t lost on Colleen.

The team’s attitude toward wives never sat well with Colleen, and quite rightly so. Mr. Adams wanted a player’s mind to be on hockey, full stop. Wives were to be kept separate, just like a player’s religious beliefs. The club assumed that players had them, but they didn’t want to know about it. Mr. Adams didn’t want us to have any outside interests—family, business, or otherwise—that would distract us from the game. It was a ridiculous stance, but he took it seriously. What’s more, he even tried to regulate our sex lives. Given his way, players would have sex only in the off-season. He’d routinely come into the locker room and tell us to keep it in our pants. In his mind, having sex was like losing a pint of blood. It hurt your stamina on the ice and took away the jump in your legs. After one loss, I remember him getting so angry that he told a young newlywed that his play was suffering because he was spending too much time in the crease at home. That one had us cracking up behind our gloves, but Mr. Adams was dead serious. As I said, he could be a ridiculous man. It’s hard to imagine a coach trying to get
away with anything close to that now, but this was the 1950s and that was Jack Adams.

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T
he 1953–54 season was one of the rare times when Mr. Adams resisted the urge to make any major changes to the roster. He did make a few tweaks, however, most notably reaching down to the farm system and promoting Earl “Dutch” Reibel. With Dutch in the fold, Tommy Ivan decided to shift him into Alex Delvecchio’s spot on the Production Line, putting Alex between Metro Prystai and Johnny Wilson. The move seemed to work. We finished on top of the standings for a sixth consecutive year, with 88 points. Montreal racked up 81, which was good for second place, followed by Toronto with 78. In his second year behind the bench for the hapless Black Hawks, poor Sid Abel finished in the cellar with only 12 wins and 31 points. Along with the Canadiens, we were clearly the class of the league. Between our two teams, we had the top seven point getters in the NHL. I claimed the Art Ross Trophy with 81 points, 14 clear of the Rocket, while Ted Lindsay came in third, followed by Bernie “Boom-Boom” Geoffrion, Bert Olmstead, Red Kelly, and Dutch Reibel. Ted, Red, and I were also First Team All-Stars, while Sawchuk made the Second Team. Doug Harvey, Ken Mosdell, and the Rocket made the All-Star Team for the Canadiens. With that much firepower clustered between our teams, it wasn’t a surprise when we ended up squaring off for the Stanley Cup. Both semifinals went quickly. Montreal swept Boston while we put away Toronto in five games.