Gordie Howe's Son

Hilarious and touching personal stories of being great in the shadow of greatness, with a foreword by Wayne Gretzky.

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to have hockey legend Gordie Howe as your dad? If you're like thousands of Canadians who grew up in the 1960s and '70s, you need look no further than Mark Howe's funny, intimate account of being a Howe.

As a boy, Mark played ball hockey with the kids of other Detroit Red Wings on the stairs of the Olympia, and his mom, Colleen, created a place where the neighbourhood children could play hockey in the winter, even to the detriment of her own windows. At age sixteen, Mark was the youngest player ever to win an Olympic hockey medal. At eighteen, he joined his legendary father and his older brother, Marty, to become the first father-and-son teammates in hockey history, playing with the Houston Aeros of the WHA. Howe carried the Philadelphia Flyers to two Stanley Cup finals and completed a twenty-two-year professional career with the Detroit Red Wings, with whom Gordie played for twenty-five seasons. When Mark was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011, he honoured his father by proudly wearing Gordie's retired number 9 Red Wings jersey at the ceremony.

Gordie Howe's Son features many touching, sometimes harrowing stories—Gordie caring for his wife, Colleen, as she became debilitated by Pick's disease, and a freak accident that almost killed Mark while playing for the Hartford Whalers. Featuring many never-before-published photographs of the Howes, this is a book about hockey's royal family told through the career of its Hall of Fame son.