When I was 17 years old, a friend and I were watching a hockey game in the old arena in our hometown of 3,000 people when we looked up and nearly lost consciousness to see our lifelong hero by the name of Gordon Howe watching the action on the ice, where two of his sons were busy trying to live up to their famous dad’s legacy. Whipping out our high school student cards, we shoved them in the direction of that so-familiar figure with the slightly crooked smile and famously sloping shoulders. He graciously signed both cards, handed them back, and chatted with us briefly before turning back to the game.
In the intervening 36 years, Mr. Hockey did nothing to diminish his stature in the eyes of my friend and I. Even when he left the NHL and started playing with another league, we didn’t feel any betrayal. And we lived through his busy post-playing days endorsement stage where he stood smiling for the cameras beside a never-ending array of goods and services. A man’s got to make a living, we reasoned, and he hadn’t made that much money playing hockey, so let him go to it.
Without exaggeration, if Gordie had shown up in an ad promoting a bra for men, my friend and I would have rushed out and bought one the next day, such has been our devotion to the man.
We even applauded his 30-second comeback at the age 69 with a junior hockey team in Detroit and went on for week about how he almost scored a goal on his one and only shift. (He did this so he could say he had played professional hockey in six decades.)
But now, I am sad to report, there has appeared a slight wrinkle in all this waver-free worship. Gordie, I fear, has crossed some sort of invisible line in his search for security, leaving behind good management and heading instead for the murky world of greed. You see, our hero has registered his name. More specifically, his first name Gordie combined with his last name Howe. I would put them both together for you but I fear that doing so might invite a hostile visit by a team of trademark attorneys. Or I will have to mail off a big cheque.
So, now when I want to refer to the hockey god whose picture hung on my bedroom wall when I was a boy, I believe will have to call him by a variety of non-registered names such as G. Howe, Gordon Howe, Mr. Howe, Gord, Gord Howe, Howe, Gordie, etc., etc. This is distressing for someone who, at one time, longed so much for a connection to this hockey legend that I was secretly proud that our last names both started with the letter “H”. Not to mention the fact that I believed his name was sheer poetry, probably the best combination of a given and a family name in the whole history of names. Add to that an even more revealing fact that I once used to practice for hours writing Gordie’s autograph that appeared at the bottom of a black and white photo of him that I had ordered through the mail after sending along some coupons from a corn syrup maker.
When my two children were very young, I used to tease them by asking them, “Do you know who I love most in the whole, wide world?” and when they asked, “Who, Daddy?”, I’d reply, “Gordie Howe.” I’m sure that any psychologist worth her salt would have reasoned, upon hearing all the evidence, that I was only half kidding.
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But I don’t know any more. Can you still revere a man whose name you are afraid to say for fear of trademark infringement proceedings? And if I do get up the nerve to use his registered name in print, do I have to use the little ™ or the ® behind the words? If I do dare to use it, do I have to send some money somewhere? How much would I send and where would I send it?
Most disturbing of all, is the question of what I now should do with my old high school student card. Do I need to send that back or have it approved or pay a fee of some kind to retain it?
When I was a lad, my older brother took me to a charity baseball game the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team was playing against a ball team in a small village near my home. Getting up his nerve at one point during the match, he picked me up and sat me on Frank Mahovlich’s lap. Frank’s a Canadian senator now and probably has a bodyguard and I think my chances of ever again sitting
on his lap are pretty slim. As are, I suppose, my chances of ever again getting a free autograph from the other hockey hero mentioned above.
If I ever become famous, either through finding a cure for something, breaking into a bank vault, or writing a best-selling book (probably about G.H.), I make this pledge here and now and you can forever hold me to it. If some poor schmoe wants to use my name to help put food on his family’s table, he can go ahead and have it.
And for $9.95 and a couple of corn syrup stickers, I’ll send him a black and white photo of my smiling mug for his bedroom wall.
As for sitting in my lap, I’m still working out the details of that one.
©2004 Jim Hagarty
