“Lou, you don’t want this guy, back off pal, you don’t want him …”.— Referee Red Storey, to Lou Fontinato, on the night Gordie Howe took him apartThey say when Red Wings great Gordie Howe unloaded on New York Rangers tough guy Lou Fontinato, it sounded like someone chopping wood.“I never saw one like it,” said goalie Terry Sawchuk, who had a ringside seat when the action exploded beside his net.“I hit him with everything I had as hard and as often as possible,” said Howe, who was able to weather Fontinato’s first punches in the brouhaha.“Never in my life have I heard anything like it,” fellow official Frank Udvari said in 1979, “except maybe the sound of someone chopping wood. Thwack! And all of a sudden Louie’s breathing out of his cheekbone.”As Buffalo Sabres’ great Danny Gare once said, “Gordie was a big man in his day, but today he would be not much bigger than average, really. But one thing Gordie had was the farm boy strength." “Bobby Hull was the same way. They had (big) hands and arms and probably never picked up a weight in their life. They were just born naturally strong.”Stan Fischler was watching from the Garden press box that night. He’d later describe Howe’s fists moving “like locomotive pistons,” moving Fontinato’s nose to another zip code.Nobody saw that on a big screen television. Nobody. Certainly not me, as I was only four years old in 1959, and still living on a farm in Manitoba.But games were broadcast on radio back then, as they still are today.Friends often ask me, “Dave, did you see the Flames game last night?” And, I have to answer, no, I didn’t, but I did listen to it on the radio. On the what, they say? The radio?That’s right, I listen to hockey on the radio.The question, of course, is why. Why in God’s name would I listen to a game on the radio, when just about everything is being broadcast or streamed in hi-def.And yeah, I do have a big-screen TV in the condo we are renting.I don’t really have a patented answer, except to say hockey on TV has become boring. I don’t know why, but the games seem to go on forever, there are tons of truck commercials, I can’t stand the talking heads in between periods, and the Darryl Sutter style of close-checking wants to make me cut my wrists.Of course they win games playing that way, but it’s boring as hell.Take earlier this week. I listened to the last half of the Flames game against a team on the coast called the Kraken. God knows what that is.Reason being, I get tired and sleepy at 7 or 8 p.m., and sleep beckons. I’m an oldster, and I can’t stay up late anymore.I used to be a night owl, but age has changed things.But the fact of the matter is, when I’m lying in bed, listening to a hockey game half awake, my imagination takes over.Suddenly, I am transported to being a kid again on Wyandotte St. East, in my parent's’ basement, listening to my mom’s washing machine churn, and, holding my Hespeler stick — which was elegantly taped like Gordie’s — and shooting a tennis ball against the basement wall.Again, and again, and again. Listening to every nuance of the game, and imagining that I was there.It could be in Montreal, it could be in Boston, or it might even be at the Olympia in Detroit. But I was there, front and centre, imagining every bit of it.I remember once the Wings were at home against the pesky Bruins, who were besieging the net.Somebody fired the puck at Roy Edwards’ forehead, and, whammo. Down went Edwards in the crease! He was knocked out cold!Rather than blow his whistle and stop the game, John Ashley, the absolute worst referee in the NHL, let play continue. And of course, the Bruins scored.It was a bloody travesty, but par for the course for Ashley, whom I grew to hate.I can’t recall if the Bruins tied the game, or won it, but that incident stood out in my imagination, as did many others.I also remember listening to the Wings on the radio with my dad during their 1965-66 playoff run when the Habs would win the Cup in a controversial Game Six, where it's alleged Henry Richard pushed the puck into the net with his hand on goalie Roger Crozier.When my dad shut off the radio that night in our darkened kitchen, I never felt such an empty, crushing feeling.It remains one of the biggest disappointments in my life — a loss that haunts me to this day.Far, far bigger and far, far worse than any big-screen TV could possibly do.But this was life. This was hockey. We can’t always win. That’s what makes it so special. So unique.There is no other sport like it in the world.I recount the story where a young Gordie walked into the Red Wings dressing room for the first time and picked up a stick belonging to defenceman “Black Jack Stewart.”It was heavy as hell, and Gordie remarked: “How do you score with this thing?”Stewart responded, coldly: “It ain’t for scorin’ kid, it’s for breakin’ arms.”Welcome to the NHL!So yes, I will go on listening to hockey on the radio and I often look forward to the locker-room interviews following the game, the recaps, and the phone calls from the fans.I learn more from that than any pretty talking head jabbering away on TV, over-analyzing and dissecting every play until there’s no magic, no fun left.Back in the day, I knew who the great players were … guys like Hull, Mahovlich, Beliveau and others. I listened to the radio. I read the papers. I bought the magazines (which my evil teacher, Mrs. Soroka would confiscate from me at school.)I didn’t give a damn, I kept buying the magazines.It was Original Six, and I probably knew the name of every hockey player in the league and what position they played. I had their hockey cards, too.And yes, I did faithfully watch Hockey Night In Canada on Saturday nights, but only after I had taken a bath. Them’s were the rules.And back then, we all knew who the Great One was. A player who stood out from the rest. There was no doubt, no argument.One only had to ask former player/coach Al MacNeil, a former consultant with the Flames, about Gordie Howe.“Every era is different. And it’s tough to compare,” he said. “But I always say the guy who would’ve transcended all eras, any era — who could’ve played at any time in the game’s history — was Howe."“The greatest player I ever saw.“That’s taking nothing away from guys like Gretzky or Orr. I coached against them both. They were unbelievable players.“But Howe … I’d take him over anybody.”Me too. I was there, at every game, listening intently on the radio. Imagining every shot, save and fight.Shooting that damn tennis ball against the wall, and letting my imagination carry the day. It just didn’t get any better than that.
