Tweet of note: Gordie Howe was the greatest of them all

TSN’s BarDown offered us this at 12:43 AM on August 10th…

So I answered honestly:

The answer is an unqualified “YES!” from me.

I loved Steve, Nick, Pavel, Sergei, Henrik, Alex, Ted, so many more Red Wings that you can refer to by their first names and know who you’re talking about…But Gordie is a phenomenon unto himself.

I shook is hand once. He was in Traverse City, and he had gotten pretty bad in terms of his dementia, but I saw Gordie Howe standing there and I knew that it would be my only time to ever say “Hello” to MY greatest of all time.

I said, “Hello, Sir, it’s an honor to meet you” and I grabbed his hand. This absolute meathook of a hand shook back with the strength of ten men.

He just…from stem to stern, from his boyhood until those final days, Gordie was the most vicious player on ice, and the kindest, most dignified and gentle soul off the ice, and they don’t make a player who’s his own enforcer any more.

Squeeze Yzerman’s skill, Fedorov’s natural athleticism and Probert’s brutality into one man, and give him the egoless grace of Lidstrom, and you’ve got a start. But only a start.

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!