Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

Steve Yzerman was at a charity hockey game, and as he dressed, he realized he'd forgotten his shin pads. No problem, said a teammate — use mine.

Those shin pads? They belonged to Gordie Howe.

Howe has left a lasting, loving impression upon the world of hockey, one brought to the forefront after this week's news that his health has deteriorated dramatically. His children — Mark, Marty, Murray and Cathy — are by his side in Lubbock, Texas, where a stroke Sunday morning has left Howe with severe right-side weakness and difficulty in talking. Howe, 86, suffers from dementia and has had several mini-strokes. His wife of of 55 years, Colleen, passed away five years ago from Pick's disease, a neurological condition that causes dementia.

The man who ruled for decades as one of the most feared and respected players in the NHL now is confined to bed. Howe, who holds the record for most games (1,687) played with the Red Wings, won four Stanley Cups and was a 23-time All-Star and six-time Art Ross and Hart Trophy winner. He was in the top five in NHL scoring for 20 straight seasons.

Howe had already been enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame for nearly a dozen years by the time Yzerman first met him. It was during Yzerman's rookie year with the Wings, in 1983-84.

"I was walking in the hallway outside the locker room at Joe Louis Arena," Yzerman said Wednesday. "He introduced himself to me and I was kind of in awe. I was 18 years old. He was very nice and very humble and down to earth. You're talking, at the time, to the best player ever to play.

"It was a neat thing, at that time, for me."

The next summer, Yzerman and Howe were at a charity event in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when Yzerman realized he'd under-packed.

"I'd forgotten my shin pads, and he let me wear his," Yzerman said. "Then he left before I could give them back, so I carried them around for quite a while.

"That's Gordie Howe — very humble, very down to earth. Just a really nice person."

It's an irony lost on no one who saw Howe play that he was the polar opposite off the ice — his elbows leveled many an opponent, but his personality enchanted.

"He's admired and respected by everyone in the hockey world," Yzerman said. "The players he played with, against; fans of every organization. He was a unique player. One, to play that long, and two, to be the combination of skill and power and grit. He was the ultimate player in that role, probably the best power forward every to play, before that term came up."

For a young player establishing himself as a team leader, having Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio mill about the dressing room was intoxicating.

"Whether it was Gordie, Ted or Alex, you saw several of the former Wings greats, guys with their jerseys in the rafters at the Joe, and they were all really humble guys, just really normal guys," Yzerman said. "They were tremendous role models for all the Red Wings players. You see these guys, how they conducted themselves, and they were the best players to wear this uniform, and they're polite and humble and you realize that's the way Red Wings players should be.

"The influence Gordie had, he kept you in your place. You shouldn't be thinking you're anything special when you've got those guys around, because they're so down to earth. Just really good guys."

Howe's legacy isn't just his hockey career. It's how he kept things in perspective.

"He knew who he was," Yzerman said, "and he never tried to be different."

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.