GORDIE HOWE Autographed Sports Illustrated Cover - Jan 21, 1980 - To Doug

Description

GORDIE HOWE Autographed Sports Illustrated Cover - Jan 21, 1980 - To Doug
Cover & Autograph are excellent in color & Condition (see photos)
Front & Back Cover Only - Not the entire magazine
Gordon Howe
OC
(March 31, 1928 – June 10, 2016) was a Canadian professional
ice hockey
player. From 1946 to 1980, he played twenty-six seasons in the
National Hockey League
(NHL) and six seasons in the
World Hockey Association
(WHA); his first 25 seasons were spent with the
Detroit Red Wings
. Nicknamed "
Mr. Hockey
", Howe is often considered the most complete player to ever play the game and one of the greatest of all time.
[2]
[3]
At his retirement, his 801 goals, 1049 assists, and 1850 total points were all NHL records that stood until they were broken by
Wayne Gretzky
, who himself has been a major champion of Howe's legacy. A 23-time
NHL All-Star
, he still holds the NHL records for most games and seasons played. In 2017, Howe was named one of the "
100 Greatest NHL Players
".
[4]
Howe made his NHL debut with the Red Wings in
1946
. He won the
Art Ross Trophy
for leading the league in points each year from
1950–51
to
1953–54
, then again in
1956-57
and
1962–63
, for a total of six times, which is the second most in NHL history. He led the NHL in goal scoring four times. He ranked among the top ten in NHL scoring for 21 consecutive years and set an NHL record for points in a season (95) in 1953, a record which was broken six years later. He won the
Stanley Cup
with the Red Wings four times and won six
Hart Trophies
as the NHL's most valuable player. He also led the NHL in playoff points six times.
Howe retired for the first time in 1971 and was immediately inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame that same year. He was then inducted into the
Hockey Hall of Fame
the next year, but came back two years later to join his sons
Mark
and
Marty
on the
Houston Aeros
of the WHA. Although in his mid-40s, he scored over 100 points twice in six years, won two straight
Avco World Trophies
(1974 and 1975) and was named most valuable player in 1974. He made a brief return to the NHL in
1979–80
, playing one season with the
Hartford Whalers
, then retired at age 52. His involvement with the WHA was central to their brief pre-
NHL merger
success, forcing the NHL to recruit European talent and expand to new markets.
Howe was most famous for his scoring prowess, physical strength and career longevity, and redefined the ideal qualities of a
forward
. He is the only player to have competed in the NHL in five different
decades
(1940s through 1980s); he also played a shift in a 1997 game for the
Detroit Vipers
of the
IHL
, playing professional hockey for a sixth decade. He became the namesake of the "
Gordie Howe hat trick
": a goal, an assist and a
fight
in the same game, though he only recorded two such games in his career. He was the inaugural recipient of the
NHL Lifetime Achievement Award
in 2008.