cover image Gordie -Op/17

Gordie -Op/17

Roy MacSkimming. Greystone Books, $26.95 (220pp) ISBN 978-1-55054-159-5

For longevity, no athlete in a contact sport has matched hockey's Gordie Howe, who played professionally as a right wing for 35 years, with a two-season hiatus, from age 17 to 52. In that career, spent mostly with the Detroit Red Wings, he set dozens of records, but the most noteworthy are the scoring of 801 goals in regular season play, winning the trophy for most valuable player six times, being named to NHL all-star teams 21 times and playing on the same squad as two of his sons. Born in 1928, and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, one of nine children of a poor family, Howe was preternaturally shy as a child and not much less so as an adult. He started to skate and play hockey before he was six and was recognized as an outstanding talent in his early teens. MacSkimming (On Your Own Again) spends too many words trying to prove that Howe was better than Maurice Richard and Wayne Gretzky, but this unauthorized bio will still have wide appeal for hockey fans. Photos. (Feb.)