Exploring the Legacy of Gordie Howe: Life Lessons from his son Dr. Murray Howe

Foreign.

This is Sharpening youg Edge with Chuck and Eric.

Today's guest is Dr. Murray Howe.

But first, a special message from this episode's sponsor, Bright Legacy.

Parents, if you've got a young hockey player, whether they're just starting or chasing big goals at the high school or college level, this is something you need to hear.

Bright Legacy has created a brand new product called the Fold and it's an incredible way to capture and celebrate a milestone season.

It's a unique tri fold memorabilia piece starting with an eye catching custom mosaic cover.

Inside you'll find three panels, a built in video highlight screen that brings their biggest moments to life, an accolades page to showcase stats and achievements, and a booklet filled with news articles and photos.

You can send in your own highlights, pictures and press clippings and they'll combine them with content from their massive media library to build something truly special.

And this isn't just for hockey players either.

It's perfect for athletes in any sport who want to preserve their journey and keep those memories alive.

And the best part, Bright Legacy comes from a company that's been working with pro athletes for over 20 years, including names like Tkachuk, Lundqvist and Stahl, helping them celebrate milestone performances.

If you want to create something for your athlete that they will have forever, head to Bright Legacy and order your fold today.

That's Bright Legacy.

B R I T E L e g a c-y.com and don't forget, tell them Sharpening youg Edge sent you when you fill out the contact form on your order.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Sharpening youg edge presented by CV3 Hockey Development.

I'm Chuck Verdolino and today I'm riding solo.

Unfortunately my co host Eric had a late minute work call so he will not be able to join us for this recording.

But we are pleased to welcome author, doctor, keynote speaker and the youngest son of the famous Gordie Howe, Dr. Murray Howe.

Dr. Howe, thanks for joining us tonight.

Oh absolutely, my pleasure Chuck, thanks for having me on.

So time is hard to come by.

But on my downtime to decompress I like to read and I picked up Crossroads which was an Autobiography based on Caleb Dahlgren.

And I also picked up I love autobiography biographies because I love first hand stories and to delve into people's lives and rather than a secondhand source talking about someone.

But I read your father's book and I was moved by it, his autobiography.

And then I came across your book, nine Lessons I Learned from My Father and I was absolutely blown away.

For those that haven't read it, I highly, highly recommend it.

It's part eulogy, part memoir, and part practical life for the audience.

Not only is it about your father, but it's stuff you learned along the way from your father.

And it's also life lessons for our audience as well and for your readers.

So to get into the questions, you grew up with three siblings, two of them being brothers, and I have two sons, so I know how that goes.

Growing up as the youngest son of Gordie Howe, what did a, quote, normal day actually look like in the household?

Well, our normal day was probably not like most people's normal day.

I mean, everything centered on hockey.

Pretty much from my youngest memories are hockey memories.

I spent my time when I was a toddler in rinks, basically either watching my dad or watching my brothers play.

And when we weren't at a rink, we were at home playing driveway hockey or hockey in the basement with any kind of implements we could find.

A sock made a great puck.

Tennis ball obviously was great.

If we were outside, we broke too many things with the tennis balls inside.

My dad was gone a lot during the hockey season, but I didn't know anything different.

So it never really occurred to me that, oh, I wish he was home more or whatever.

It was just, that was just the way it was.

And when he came home, it was always so great because he was really dedicated to his kids and to my mom and he just loved goofing around with us and doing whatever fun things we wanted to do.

He loved playing any sport that we were doing, whether it was just baseball, football, hockey, you name it.

He would just jump in and cream us and just had so much fun doing it.

And so it was really, I mean, honestly, my, my childhood was as, as joyful as I could imagine anybody's being.

My parents were just so loving and so encouraging and just fun, always looking for new ways to inspire us and stimulate our brains.

And so it was great.

And one of the great things about it was both my parents were very, very humble and they loved people.

So if anybody came to the door and wanted an autograph, that would just happen.

And usually my Parents would invite them in and give them something to eat or drink and made a moment of it.

So we learned to never shy away from the public, that it was a privilege and an honor to be able to meet somebody who was excited about you or about your family or whatever.

So that was a really great lesson for us, that we really had an obligation to the fans and that it was a privilege and not a chore to sign an autograph or talk with somebody.

So when we were out to dinner, we never ate alone.

There would always be somebody coming up and saying, hey, can I have your autograph?

And then my parents would just say, hey, you can sit down with us and tell us about your story.

And after I wrote nine lessons, started doing book tours, and I would meet so many people that had a story about my parents.

And the stories were all so similar and so shocking to me from the standpoint of they would just say, when I was 10 years old, I came up to your dad at breakfast in some cafeteria and asked for his autograph.

And he said, I'll only sign this if you come and sit down and have breakfast with me.

And I had so many people tell me the same thing.

I just thought, man, where did he have the time to do this?

But he just loved.

He just loved people and just never.

Never saw it as anything but just a blessing in the day to meet somebody new and learn about them and pass on some of his.

His wisdom.

So it was.

It was really great.

And no one told me that I wouldn't be great at hockey.

So from my youngest days, I tried to follow my dad's footsteps and my brother's footsteps.

Just thinking, well, they're.

They all are going to the NHL, so why not me?

So I played hockey pretty much every day from the time I was about five.

I was on a team.

And when I was doing Halloween, we would.

I would dress up in my hockey uniform, and then my dad would find me just before I had to be at practice, and he'd pick me up wherever house I was at and whisked me away to my practice or game.

And so anyway, that's just kind of what we did, and it was great.

And then we had a rule where in the summertime, you.

We weren't allowed to play any sports because we had to have downtime to just goof around.

So it actually was.

It was great.

And so we spent a lot of time with my parents in the summer, just whatever, hanging out at a lake or a pool or in the backyard or whatever.

And that Was it was a great, great childhood.

That's fantastic.

A couple things that, that I picked up on from the book too is it's incredible that as dads, at the end of the day when you're exhausted and things like that from, from a regular job and you come home and the kids are wanting to play with you and you're a little hesitant, but you do it because you want to be a good dad.

And just it had to be tough for him coming back from practice or games and, or road trips and injuries as he.

And just to set the time aside for you, just hang out with you.

So I think that was great.

Another thing I wanted to point out to our audience if you picked up on what Dr. Howe just said about the summers, everybody nowadays wants to play hockey year round and you had a family with an NHLer, probably arguably the greatest NHLer of all time, and two brothers that played in the pros and they took the summers off to relax and recharge.

So that's a good lesson for youth hockey players and parents out there.

So, Dr. Howe, you had a remarkable career in medicine.

You still do.

You're the head of sports medicine imaging for the Toledo Radiology Associates and Promedica Health Systems Sports Care program.

You teach as well.

You're an associate clinical professor at the University of Toledo Medical center and you also have speaking engagements.

You're a keynote speaker across Canada and the U.S. to speak about a number of topics.

So as a how you kind of alluded to it earlier, but as a how you, you pretty much seem like you were maybe destined for hockey.

So how did your path evolve beyond hockey into the field you're in today?

Well, I went to university with the idea that I would play hockey there and then go from there to the NHL.

So I tried out at University of Michigan and I only chose U of M because they had a really great hock team and it was close to home.

They still do.

They still do.

They still do.

They still do.

And, and so I tried out as a walk on.

I'd been recruited by some other teams, but not by Michigan.

And so I just kind of land in the middle of nowhere there and with 60 other walk ons and almost made it got down to the final five of the walk ons and then I got caught and it was just, it was a life changing moment for me because it was just like a mirror being put up your face saying, well, you're not as good as you thought you were.

And, and they said play junior hockey.

Come back next year and we'll, we'll see if we can get a spot for you.

But I knew at that point that even if I did make the club, I'd be playing one shift a game or something.

And I figured no matter what I did in hockey that at some point I would be doing something else.

And I saw that with my dad and my brothers that eventually you have to hang up your blades and then what do you do?

And so I always loved sciences, I loved writing.

And I said, you know what, maybe this is just my wake up call to hang up the blades and focus on another career.

That would be super fun.

And I had no idea what I was going to do.

I remember when I got told in the dressing room that I, that I got cut.

I was, I literally was speechless.

I just, I just, I was just overwhelmed.

It was pretty much 18 years of my life was dedicated to the single mission that I failed at.

And I just, I was dumbfounded.

So I just wrote on the board, the chalkboard, good luck guys or whatever, and then walked out.

And I stepped out of there thinking, what, what am I going to do now?

And it was really, really a challeng remember the moment.

And then I called my parents and said, I got cut from the club.

And they said, well, thank God, now we don't have to worry about you.

And so that just took all the pressure off.

They never said we want you to play pro hockey.

They just said, do what you want to all of us kids.

And so that just opened the door for me to just figure out what I wanted to do.

And so I just took a bunch of science and writing classes and did well enough to be able to apply for a pre med curriculum.

And I was actually shocked that I did as well as I did because I spent so much time training for hockey that my, my grades were good, but they weren't great.

And after I was cut from the team, I had all this extra time to study and I was used to just powering through with four hour practices, so, so delving that amount of energy into my studies, I was able to very well.

And so I was pleased.

I said, well, maybe I could be a doctor, because up to that point I just never thought that would be possible.

No one in our family had gone to college or my brothers, they ended up finishing high school, but through correspondence courses later, just because they were so busy with their junior hockey that they just kind of dropped out of school and then came back later and finished.

So I was kind of the first one to go a More academic path.

And.

And the more I did my pre med curriculum, the more I realized how much I loved it.

And I just did writing on the side, Took a lot of writing classes.

That.

That was my outlet to kind of decompress from doing chemistry and biology and physics all the time.

But I loved it and applied to medical school and got into University of Michigan Medical School.

And I was just thrilled for that.

And it just all kind of fell into place from there.

I just wanted to do something in the sports realm, so I thought, maybe I'll be a sports medicine doctor or an orthopedic surgeon.

And then we had a very charismatic radiologist, Barry Gross, who's this, who recently retired from University of Michigan.

But he was my mentor.

He gave a lecture on anatomy from a radiology standpoint.

And I never even heard of a radiologist.

Didn't know what that was.

And I was blown away.

I just said, I want to be like this guy.

So I modeled my career then after him, I kind of went over to his office and said, what does a radiologist do?

And blah, blah, blah.

So he just showed me everything about radiology.

I just said, this is really.

This is the perfect path.

I can do all the.

The radiology of the athletes and fix them from the anatomic perspective.

And so I never veered from that trajectory and ended up finishing my training at University of Michigan.

I was there for undergrad and for medical school and for my RA radiology training.

So I was there for 12 years and then did another year of training down at Henry Ford in cross sectional imaging, including sports medicine imaging.

And so we did the Lions, we did the Tigers, we did the, ah, we did all kinds of different sports teams and several university teams as well.

And then U of M's team.

I ended up doing a lot during my training.

So anyway, it was a ton of fun.

And my parents were thrilled that I ended up being able to help fix hockey players instead of being a hockey player.

And I said, it's.

We get sued once in a while, but we don't get traded.

So I think it's still a. I think it's a, It's a great.

It's a great career.

I'm still doing it.

I'm 65 and I have no intention of retiring because it's just so rewarding and engaging every day.

And that was, again, something that my parents always taught us is just choose a.

Choose a career that you love.

So you're not.

You never feel like you're actually working.

And that's that's how I feel about, about radiology.

So you referenced the fact that your parents, when you went for Michigan to play hockey and it didn't work out, they were like, okay, good.

You can work hard to.

For something else internally and it's a moot point at this instance because you're so successful and happy with what you're doing today.

But at the time, internally, did you put undue pressure on yourself by carrying the name, the how name and not making that team and being successful in hockey?

I think I wanted to do well, not to please my parents, but to basically to try to follow.

I guess it was just.

It was.

It's hard to explain.

I wanted to be my dad.

I wanted to be able to be on the ice every night and hear the roar of the crowd and put that puck in the net, get the winning goal and just have all that excitement.

And then also to be able to be like a role model for the fans and the kids after the game and just to be really great at this sport, but also to be very humble about it and just be a great ambassador for the sport.

I really wanted to do that, but because I'm only 56 on a good day and 140 pounds.

I was 165 pounds back then because I was lifting weights and eating like a horse.

Just anything possible to get bigger.

But I was trying to, I was trying to outdo my genes that were just not.

They were not gonna comply no matter what I did or how much I ate.

I was not going to be.

My brothers are.

They're Marty's 6:1 and he was 2 2:10, 2:20.

Dad was 6ft 2, 2:10, 2:15.

Mark's like 5:10 and 195 pounds in his heyday.

So they were like twice my size.

So I, but nobody, like, it's hard to point that out to somebody like, wow, you are smaller than them.

And I just always learned from my dad just like never give up.

And so I just never even entertained the possibility that I would not.

That I would not make it.

And so it.

I don't know, it's kind of like all these stories that you read as a child of the.

The turtle that ends up in a, in a bird's nest.

And no one tells it that it's not a.

That is not a bird.

And it's just, it was just.

It was really eye opening for me when I realized, yeah, I'm, I'm not.

I'm really not made to be a hockey player.

And but it became so apparent after I got cut that, oh, wow, this is, this is great.

Now I'm.

I was always kind of like the kid that was a step behind when I was playing with whatever team.

I played on all the best teams and we won nationals and I mean, if you look at my list of credits of my hockey career, up to up through juniors, you would say this kid's probably going to be in the NHL.

I played with Gretzky and Coffey and juniors and I was always on the right team and this and that, but I was always the last person on the roster.

And so it was always a struggle.

There was, but the pressure wasn't from my parents.

It was just from me trying to just be like them.

It wasn't that I was trying to live up to something that they wanted me to be.

It was just something that I wanted to be because I was a.

How.

I guess.

And, but, but after, yeah, after I got cut, it was so much fun because studies just came so easy to me.

And so I was always the one that was tutoring other students or helping people out to get through a certain solution for a problem or whatever.

And so I, I realized very quickly that I was.

That I had found my home.

And it's just funny how it just takes a while.

But you know, I feel like the good Lord has a way of helping you to find your destiny eventually despite.

Despite your best efforts.

And now let's take a quick break to hear from our partners.

When the ice calls, you answer.

But to answer, you need the right gear.

Play It Again Sports Newark has everything you need to take your game to the next level.

From quality used gear at a great price to get you started to top of the line new products for your semi pro tournament season.

Play It Again Sports Newark has you covered.

Expert advice, custom fittings, gear that works as hard as you do.

Not to mention on demand skate sharpening services.

Their team will make sure you have what you need to dominate the ice.

Plus plus save even more when you sell them your gear you no longer need.

We all know hockey is expensive, so buy more while paying less at Play It Again Sports Newark.

Tell them you heard it from us and get an extra 15% off with code EDGE15.

I'd like to get into the book now.

Like I said, I absolutely love the book and I highly, highly recommend it to anyone that has some time to read.

When your father passed away, you were tasked with writing his eulogy.

What was the process like emotionally and mentally when sitting down to write this Book.

Well, first off, my brothers are not big public speakers.

They do it often, but they never enjoy it.

And they both had such a strong connection with my father and so much, I don't know, such deep, deep emotions and feelings that they both felt there was no way they could get up in front of an audience and do a eulogy.

And my sister felt the same way.

And so they said, you're doing it.

And I said it would take a team of horses to keep me from doing it because I felt like I knew my dad as well as anybody did.

And there was so many things that I wanted to say about him as a father and as a human being.

I felt like most people knew Gordie Howe, the hockey player, and they'd hear stories of he was such a nice guy and such a gentleman and this and that, but most people didn't know more than the tip of the iceberg on how deep his goodness as a person and as a father went.

And so I was so excited to amass those, all those, those thoughts and feelings of how much I admired him and adored him as a man and as a role model and communicate that to everybody so that they would remember that eulogy.

They would, they would remember that this guy wasn't just another great athlete or just another great husband or father.

This guy was one of a kind.

And so anytime I would write any story, essay, etc.

I would just write down just blank sheets of paper, all the things that came to mind, all the things that I wanted to say about him, that, that set him apart in my eyes.

And so I just got all the things, those down.

And then I started to think of stories that would highlight those things that I wanted to say about him.

And so that's how I ended up putting the eulogy together.

And it actually took me, I don't even know how long it took me.

It was kind of a.

It was a process that went on for days or weeks where I would just kind of say, oh, yeah, that's, that's another thing that I kind of want to have down there.

But then after he passed away, that's when I, that's when I said, okay, I got to get this down into goods.

Final work.

And so I pretty much stayed up all night doing it.

And then we had the, the, like the, the initial events to kind of honor him before the actual eulogy.

And people told me so many more stories, like all the things that were happening right after he passed away, and just the way that people were reaching out and the Stories that they were sharing me that I'd never heard before.

I said, I've gotta.

I've gotta get all this stuff into the.

Into the eulogy.

So I pretty much had to rewrite it again.

So I think I had, like, two hours of sleep the night before the actual funeral, and.

But I was so energized and so excited to share this man with the world.

That's what I did.

And I just.

I just prayed to the good Lord that he helped me to express the depth of my love for him and not allow me to just focus on, oh, those cameras are blinding, and there's all these lights and there's all the.

All this stuff that's happening, and just give me the words to just.

To just help everybody that hears this, to know the beauty and the love of this man so that they can take away a little bit of that for their own lives.

And so that's how the eulogy came together.

And shortly after that was Father's Day.

I think it was like a week after.

I think he died on the 10th of June, and Father's Day was on the 16th.

And I woke up on Father's Day.

And on Father's Day, I always tried to do something extra special with my dad.

I would take him to do whatever he wanted to do, whether it was golfing or go for a hike somewhere or fishing or whatever it was.

And I couldn't do that because he was no longer physically present.

And I thought, wow, like, I want to still do something or give him something.

And that's when it came to me to just kind of use the eulogy as a kind of a outline for a greater book that would get down everything that he stood for and everything that.

That made him so special to me and share that with the world.

And that would be.

That was.

This would be a way of carrying on his legacy of being a beautiful man and more than just a hockey player and kind of just keep all the lessons that he wanted the world to carry on, keep those alive.

And so that was kind of.

That's how the book kind of happened, because of the.

Because of the eulogy and because of Father's Day and all that kind of all falling into place at one time.

And it was.

It was such a joy to write the book and expand upon all the things that I had said in the eulogy.

Just all the things that I learned from my father and all the things that just made him so.

So.

So above and beyond the average person.

And that's one of the Many reasons why I absolutely love the book because I feel like the true meaning of life, the real meaning of life, is how you impact others.

And it wasn't just the story about his life in general, the bright lights and all the awards and accolades, but how he lived his life behind the scenes and how he impacted others and how he impacted your life.

And so I'd like to get into some of those stories and explore the books.

Nine lessons here.

So the first one is live honorably.

And we talked, we already talked about how we treat.

Treated everyone with respect, whether it was the coach, the players, teammates, fans, janitors, equipment managers, everyone you can think of.

And in the book, you describe honor as something built in everyday moments.

What's a small, specific memory that best captures that from your father?

You know, he really, he saw every moment as an opportunity to make a difference in somebody's life.

And it was always so fun to be with him because you never knew how he was going to turn a simple, mundane chore or whatever into something unforgettable.

If we would go to the grocery store, just the way that he would interact, somebody would recognize him and just the way that he would interact with them and joke around with them and sign their back of their shirt or whatever and just, he would just make sure that they knew they were special and that he truly cared about them.

And he wanted to make that.

He wanted to make that moment something that they would never forget.

I would say anybody that ever met him would say they remember that moment not because they met Gordie Howe, but because of how Gordie Howe acted towards them.

And we, we would go to.

Anytime we went to a gas station, he would, he would do the.

He would wash the windows of the car next to us.

Just, that's just how he was.

He wasn't like trying to impress anybody.

It was just like he felt like, well, I'm just sitting here watching the gas go in my car, I might as well do something.

And then the people would recognize, this is Gordie Howe is washing my windshield on my car.

It's such a beautiful example of that.

He's no better than anybody else and he's a servant and he looks for that opportunity to serve.

So to me, honorable is just.

It's always doing the right thing, trying to do the right thing because people look up to you.

So he would never do anything that might make somebody say, oh, wow, like Gordy Howe's smoking a cigarette or whatever, like.

Or you Gordy house drunk.

And he, he never wanted to do anything that would detract from the example that he was trying to.

He was trying to.

Trying to lead.

And it actually made a huge difference on whatever team he was playing on.

It was mostly the Red Wings, of course, but even later on with the Whalers and the Arrows, all the players were better people because of him.

The.

The players that were on the road that normally would be go out drinking or this or that, they just didn't do it because they knew my dad would be watching them and.

And would kind of give them a evil eye if he.

If he thought that they were out of line or not being respectful or whatever.

So he just.

He was so good at always choosing, doing the right thing, and it just.

It made everybody want to.

Want to do the right thing.

Yeah.

And he would.

I love the reading about the fact that he would just sign for hours for people, and his response would be, they're paying my salary.

Right.

And he did this before the bright lights.

Right.

And to hear all these stories from people, even today, we live in the life of social media and there's cameras everywhere.

And back when your father was playing, obviously that wasn't the case.

So to have this many stories about your dad is fantastic.

About his generosity and his example to live honorably.

So I mentioned the social media age.

Nowadays.

We see it with a lot of players today in the women's game, in the pwhl.

They're trying to grow the women's game so they are accessible to the public.

They run clinics, they sign autographs and things like that.

We also see it with some of the young NHL stars, like Matthew Schaefer, who unfortunately lost his mom, the cancer, but he gives back to the community.

He hosts children that are in the same situation that he was losing his mom.

So we do see a lot of these professional athletes today live generously.

And when you think of generosity in your mind, especially with this time, why do you think it's so impactful in both sports and life, or how do you think it's impactful?

Well, I think that we're creatures of experience, so when we see somebody doing something, we tend to emulate that, especially if it's somebody that we really admire.

So I think when any celebrity or just a person who just kind of is somebody that you admire for whatever their talents are, their looks, their skills, whatever it is, their arts, they will tend to emulate that.

And so when you do something generous, whether it's financial or whether it's giving of your time or just giving of your talents, just if You're a singer breaking out in a song just out of the blue to just entertain the people in the airport.

People remember that and it makes them want to.

To do the same.

And so dad took every opportunity.

I mean, he was the.

The most generous person that I've ever known because he just never stopped giving.

And it was just a great example.

So whenever I felt just tired and wanted to go home, I just stick at it because I knew that's what my dad was going to do or that he would have done even after he.

He passed away.

And it's just a great example.

I think generosity is.

It's definitely contagious.

And so I.

And it's also boundless, that it's kind of like love.

You have a.

An infinite tank if you decide that you do.

And that's how he was.

And it just.

It never ceased to amaze me how much he would give.

And the other thing is he never valued money.

He saw money as something that is only useful if you use it to do something kind for somebody else.

And so he was always looking for.

Both my parents were always looking for opportunities to make somebody's day by buying their dinner or just randomly buying them a present and leaving it on their door.

And nobody would ever know who did it.

And they, that was their.

One of their biggest joys was just giving to people without them ever knowing that it was them.

And because of that, my parents always had enough.

They were never super, super wealthy.

And I feel that was a gift because they always felt like they had to keep doing something, keep the money flowing in, but never worrying that they don't have enough, but never worrying about, oh, how do we buy this next, another house or whatever.

They just.

They were always happy with what they had and they were most happy giving away rather than amassing stuff for themselves.

And so it's just because of that they.

In the times where they lost money because of having an agent that stole from them or whatever, they never let it get to them because like, okay, that, that just happened and we're okay.

And so I think.

I think if you just don't really love.

If you love people more than money, that you're always going to be happy because there's always people that are going to love you.

The money may or not, may or may not be there, but the love will be there.

And now let's take a quick break to hear from our partners.

Hey, what's up everybody?

It's Sharpening youg Edge and CV3 Hockey.

My name is Lee Elias and I am the CEO of Hockey Wraparound.

We've been in business for over 10 years.

We're an American made company and we basically make off ice solutions for your ice hockey player, including our flagship product, the Hockey Wraparound.

It's the original, it's the longest lasting blade protector on the market and what it does is it allows your ice hockey player to use their ice hockey stick outside on rough pavement without any fear of damaging their stick.

We have thousands of positive reviews and it has been a major solution for a lot of hockey players looking to train outside.

We also recently introduced the puck around, which is the first off ice puck that's the same weight, the same size as an ice hockey puck that you can shoot, puck, handle with and practice with.

At the end of the day, we try and bring ice hockey off ice and that's something we've been proud to do for the last decade.

So check us out@hockeywraparound.com and if you use the code CV3, you can get 15% off your entire purchase over at hockeywraparound.com One more time.cv3 hockeywraparound.com we are really proud to be supporting the guys at sharpening your edge.

Enjoy this episode of their show and have fun skating.

Take care.

Yeah, and I love the quote.

Everyone's buried with the same amount of money, right?

So it's what you do in your life.

As you mentioned your father and your mother and the example that they set for you.

I love that.

One other lesson that really resonated with me, especially because it's so prevalent in not only the youth hockey world today, but the youth sports world today is play hard but have fun.

We see a lot of youth hockey players today at the young ages of 8, 10 years old.

It's so professionalized today with the elite teams and the travel and all over the world and things like that.

And we see a lot of kids burning out and quitting by the time they're 11, 12 years old because it's more of a job to them than an actual kid's game.

And your dad, this is one of the lessons you learned from your dad.

And even with the pressures of rising to the NHL and playing for five to six, he did play six decades, but a majority of his career was five decades.

But even so, as he get older and things like that, what did your father do that kept hockey joyful even at the highest level?

One of his traits that was so unusual was gratitude.

He recognized the immensity of the privilege of being able to play this game and to entertain people to make their day and to be able to do it well.

And he just told me so many times, I mean, how fortunate am I to be able to do this, play this game and get paid for it and this game that I just love so much.

And I said, yeah, you're right, dad.

Like, that's just.

It's so rare and so fun that you're able to do this and keep doing it.

And he said, I don't know how long I'm able to, but I'm just gonna keep going.

He was talking about that when he was around 40.

I remember he would start having conversations with me.

I was about 10 at the time.

And he was like, yeah, I wonder, should I retire at that point?

His wrists were going to.

Were becoming shredded bits, and his wrists were as big as a normal person's bicep.

Like, they were just massive swollen bags of bones.

And the fact that he could still play with those was just astonishing.

But he's like, I still love it every night.

I love getting out there.

And he, I think he just appreciated the game so much.

Every little detail of it.

The excitement of a goal, the excitement of setting someone else up for a goal, the excitement of stopping somebody from scoring.

Just the whole interplay with the, with the goalie when you're coming up on the goalie and it's just a one on one situation.

And sometimes you totally deke them out, sometimes they shut you down.

And it's a, it's a, it's an exciting story that you never know the ending of.

And the interplay.

He knew everybody on that ice, and so it was like meeting up with old friends every game and sometimes old friends that you always had a bit of an edge with and that you maybe needed to settle a score.

And it was just.

I mean, he never.

He didn't watch television because he didn't need television.

He had real life drama going on all day, every day.

And especially once he stepped on that ice, the game was real, and if you played with your head down, you were going to end up in the dressing room on a stretcher.

And he loved that.

He loved the, the.

He loved the edge that he had to, that he had to skate on.

And so.

But I think it was that gratitude that helped him recognize that he just never got tired of it because it was such a privilege to be out there.

I think even when he retired at 52, he said, Mer, I think I still have a couple more years left in me but at that time, the coach on the Wailers was not giving him as much ice time.

And he's like, if I'm sitting on the bench, I can't.

I can't contribute the way that I want to.

And he said, I might as well just do something else.

And so it was frustrating for him that he still.

He still wanted to keep.

To keep going.

And if you look at his stats in his final season, compared to the amount of ice time that he got, he was still one of the best players on the team.

And he didn't miss a game that whole season, which is just astonishing.

But it was.

It was that love and appreciation and gratitude for the game that really allowed him to just keep going.

And it didn't matter how much it hurt.

I mean, he was always.

I mean, it was like got run over by a train.

At the end of every game, he would be in the ice bath and then get injections in his wrists, and he didn't take painkillers, but just any kind of topical stuff that they could give him.

But he'd be back at it at practice, 10am the next day, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Just loved every second of it.

And he still had time to come home and play with his kids.

And he did get that.

That sixth decade.

So he did span six decades.

So that must have been fun for him as well.

So.

So one quote that resonates with me is greatness meant being the best person you could be, not the best person on the ice.

So when people hear the name Gordie Howe, they immediately think of hockey.

But what do you hope that they think after reading your book?

That they feel, number one, that that Gordie Howe's greatness was not the things that he did on the ice, it was the things that he did off the ice so well, how much he gave of himself to every person that he met.

Because when people met him, they were so excited.

So he always had a choice.

He could quell that excitement by just saying, hey, I'm busy, or, yeah, I'm really great, hi, or whatever, or he could ask them about their.

What's going on in their life and what do they want to do and whatever it was.

And he always chose to be that person that.

That made it special for those people.

So I really hope that what my dad wanted to do was inspire people to basically figure out what they love and share that with the world.

And when they would meet Another person that they would give to that person in the same way that he would give to that person, that he would just give them his time and make them feel special and inspire them to be the best at whatever it is that they love to do.

My dad was always, he was always so.

He admired whatever talent it was that you had.

He was always humbled by anybody who was an artist or a singer or a comedian or a teacher or a writer or an engineer or a physician, whatever it was.

He was in awe what they could do.

He was always so humbled when he would go to speak at, let's say, a university for a commencement or whatever.

He would just say, I feel so small, small right now because I'm surrounded by people who are at the top of their field and are going to impact the world as the next generation with the things that their brain can do that I could never do.

And he would make them feel that they were the Gordie Howes of whatever industries that they were in.

And that's, I think, his hope for everybody, that everyone would think very little of themselves and think very much of appreciate the people around, around them so that collectively we would all be bigger because of how we view each other.

So as we're reaching close to the hour, Mark, I wanted to ask you a couple wrap up questions so you specifically.

So for anyone listening who would like to dive deeper into the book or yourself looking for guidance or where can people find the book, number one, and how can they get in touch with you for speaking engagements and things like that?

Sure.

So the book should be available wherever books are sold, especially Amazon.

I believe you can find nine Lessons I learned from my father pretty easily and most bookstores can still order it as well.

And in terms of reaching out to me, probably easiest way is just to email me X ray how X R A Y H O w e@yahoo.com I'm one of the few people who still has a Yahoo account.

And so x ray howahoo.com perfect.

And I'm glad I reached out to you.

I tried a couple different email addresses because after I read the book it resonated with me so much and impacted me so much that I said I got.

I have to email Dr. How and tell him what kind of impact reading that book had on me.

You're great at responding and I'm glad you did because we got to have you on today and talk about your dad and your life as well and how he impacted not just your life and your brother's life.

And your sister's life and your mom's life, but everyone that surrounded him.

So.

So one final question we ask all our guests, since it's a developmental podcast, what is your definition of development?

Whether it could be any aspect of the word.

Mental, physical, anything.

Yeah.

To me, development is growth.

You begin with a starter protoplasm, whatever it is, your.

Your body, mind and soul, and your goal is to develop that into whatever you aspire to be.

And I learned from my parents that you can do anything that you put your mind to.

And that doesn't mean that if you want to be a pro hockey player, you're going to be a pro hockey player.

But if you put your mind to it, it's going to.

If you have that singular trajectory, it's going to take you on the path that you're meant to go on.

And the important thing is to put everything that you have into it.

I know for myself that you could say, well, spending 18 years of your life for this goal, and then you didn't make it as a pro, that was such a waste of time and energy.

But I realize that it is why I love my current career so much and why my training for that career went so well.

Was everything that I learned in training as a hockey player was applicable to becoming a physician and having the endurance and the proper attitude.

When you're studying for 12 or 14 hours a day or on your feet at the hospital, it's like, this is nothing.

This is easy compared to hockey, summer or camp.

And so, anyway, so that's in a nutshell.

To me, development is really about having a goal, setting that goal, and then laying out your game plan for how you're going to achieve that goal.

And as a hockey player, I learned from the earliest age that if you want to learn something, you just keep doing whatever's necessary to learn that.

And nowadays that's easier than ever because of the Internet.

If you want to learn how to do a little dipsy doodle, you can find it and you can watch it, and then you practice and you practice and you're going to.

You're going to learn it if you.

If you keep.

Keep your.

Keep trying.

And so I would just encourage everybody to.

The toughest thing is to figure out what you want to do, what you love to do.

And once you figure that out, you just put your mind, body and soul into it, and.

And you'll get there.

Dr. Howe, I can't express enough how thankful I am that you came on the show today.

From reading your book nine Lessons I Learned From My Father.

Again, I highly, highly, highly recommend picking it up.

It's a eulogy, a memoir, and life lessons all wrapped into one, even if you're not a hockey fan.

But it's life lessons as well.

So I am truly thankful that you came on to share some more stories about your dad and talk about your life as well.

It was an absolute pleasure, Chuck.

Thank you so much.

No problem.

Audience share with a friend, coach, parent, or player if you think they may be interested and benefit from this podcast.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Also, make sure you're following us on those platforms so you can stay up to date on our guests topics and corporate partners.

Thank you for listening to Sharpening youg Edge, and we'll see you next time.