It’s apt that Canadian hockey legend Gordie Howe died at 88 on the day of Muhammad Ali’s funeral, says Edmonton sportswriter Terry Jones.
If anyone could be said to be Canada’s Ali, he said, it would be Howe.
“Anyone who met him felt compelled to tell people about what it was like, and what reaction they had,” he said.
Jones, who interviewed Howe several times over the years, said he was a 10- or 11-year-old boy living in Lacombe, Alta., when he first saw the legend.
Back in those days, Howe’s team, the Detroit Red Wings, held training camp in Edmonton, he said.
Jones idolized the Wings. And though he fancied himself a goaltender and revered Terry Sawchuk, it was Howe he badly wanted to see.
“I wanted so desperately to see Gordie Howe live and in the flesh,” Jones said Friday in an interview on CBC’s Edmonton AM.
When the Wings were scheduled to play a game at the Red Deer arena, Jones’s father knew how badly his son wanted to go.
The arena held only 1,900 people, he said, and was quickly sold out.
At game time, Jones’s father took him to the ticket window at the arena and told the taker they had called ahead for tickets and there must be some mistake.
They were eventually admitted and Jones never thought higher of his father than that day, even as he committed larceny, he said laughing.
The first time he interviewed Howe as a sportswriter was at the CFRN-TV studios, where Howe was making an appearance on Popcorn Playhouse, a local children’s show.
Howe was persuaded to do the show by local sports personality Tiger Goldstick, but loved it and would appear on the show on several more occasions, Jones said.
“Gordie just loved kids,” he said.
Jones recalled watching Howe in a dressing room when someone influential brought in their son.
Howe would at first seem intimidating, but the boy left floating on air, he said.
“He just had a way that way,” Jones said. “There was no prima donna there at all. He was fan-friendly.”