What Hockey Taught Me About Spaceflight (And Vice Versa)
Two hockey superstars’ careers parallel two spaceflight legends’ careers.
Sportswriters and reporters love mixing metaphors about the big games and life, and I suppose spaceflight isn’t immune to those comparisons either. Enter the stories of hockey legends Gordie Howe (Detroit Red Wings, Houston Aeros, and New England/Hartford Whalers) and Jean Béliveau (Montreal Canadiens). Both athletes defined and symbolized entire eras of their respective sports; despite being rivals on the ice, they were good friends off it despite having very different personalities.
Let’s start with Gordie Howe’s 2014 reminiscence, Mr. Hockey: My Story (Howe’s nickname was Mr. Hockey because when you get to be the greatest at something, you’re named after it). If you’re reading Mr. Hockey, you likely know as much about Howe’s life and career as what is revealed in his autobiography — a shy kid from Saskatchewan who is an athletic prodigy starts a professional hockey career at age 18 and ends up closing out his career apparently at age 43, only to resume it again at an unbelievable age 45 in 1973 — this time, alongside his two grown sons. (Apparently, 45 in sports is really old, as I’ve become aware while my 46-year-old arthritic fingers finish typing this sentence.)
Gordie Howe and John W. Young
If you know anything about Howe’s life and career, Mr. Hockey doesn’t reveal too many surprises: he loved hockey, really freaking loved baseball until the Red Wings’ head coach, general manager, professional bully, and old man troll Jack Adams forced him to quit it via telegram, loved his family, loved fishing, and occasionally loved beating the absolute shit out of his rivals on the ice. Howe’s tendency to elbow anyone in his way of getting the puck was the stuff of folklore and almost preceded his reputation as a player with a brutal wrist shot, but Mr. Hockey doesn’t have an explanation for his occasional cruelty other than he had to protect his livelihood, and sometimes that called for him to act “crazy.” While violence is not condoned in today’s hockey world, back when Gordie was playing, losing out on games due to injuries or crappy playing sometimes meant you lost income — and back then, nobody was getting million-dollar contracts. And the Red Wings were paying Gordie criminally paltry amounts during his prime.
But Mr. Hockey doesn’t focus mainly on this, and in general, our hero comes across as the Canadian prairie’s most adorable Golden Retriever puppy, who happens to be one of the world’s greatest pro athletes and probably would’ve played hockey just for some onion rings. I hate using the word “simple” to describe Howe — that would connote that he lacked intelligence off and on the ice, which isn’t true at all — but he comes across as someone who just really loved the sport and was utterly uninterested in the political machinations that came with it. This is likely why his 1971 “retirement” lasted only two years, and he never became a coach or was well-known for leadership roles.
Howe’s unbelievable 30-plus-year career parallels astronaut John W. Young’s. Young, who, like Howe, came from humble Depression-era origins, was selected to NASA’s astronaut corps in 1962 and retired 42 years later in 2004, becoming the agency’s most experienced astronaut. Both men were quiet and preferred to let their work do the talking. Young flew Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle and walked on the freaking Moon during 1972’s Apollo 16. He also was notable for flying two different spacecraft for their risky debut missions (1965’s Gemini 3 and 1981’s STS-1 Columbia, which mercifully remains the only crewed first “test flight” in NASA’s history).
Young last flew during November 1983’s STS-9/Spacelab-1 mission at age 53; Howe finally hung up his skates at age 52 in 1980. Young’s impact upon NASA remains widely felt decades after his final spaceflight and years after his 2018 passing. When people usually mention “the astronaut’s astronaut,” they typically reference Young, despite some of his records being eclipsed by other astronauts such as Jerry Ross. Howe was devoted to playing hockey until well after his knees’ and wrists’ expiration dates; likewise, Young remained qualified in the Shuttle simulators and sleek T-38s well after he could make no more spaceflights.
But back to Mr. Hockey. When Howe retired from the Red Wings in 1971 due to wrist injuries, he briefly moved to a vice president role within the franchise. This brought him zero joy; he had no real say in team policy, was being kept around as muscular window dressing for “rubber chicken” luncheons and dinners, and wasn’t doing what he enjoyed perhaps the most: playing hockey. In the book The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association, Ed Willes wrote, “While with the Red Wings, Gordie referred to his front-office position as his mushroom job, because he was kept in the dark and every once in a while someone would open the door and throw some shit on him.”
Howe’s youngest son, Murray, wrote in his memoir Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father that Gordie was so depressed during this time that he once dejectedly asked Murray if he was a “failure.” Nobody thought Number 9 was a failure, but he was clearly stuck in a rut — only to be broken out of it when the WHA’s Houston Aeros acquired him alongside eldest sons Marty and Mark. Why was Howe never a coach? While he was offered a coaching position for the New York Islanders in 1972, he turned it down. This is where comparisons between Howe and Young diverge a bit.
While it’s not explicitly stated in Mr. Hockey, one gets the sense that Howe was uncomfortable in management and leadership positions because he was a great hockey player and just wanted to play hockey. In addition, his memoirs imply heavily that he was aware his greatness at hockey made him a wrong candidate as a head coach because he saw the game differently from other players; as a coach, he may not have understood why a decent, good, or even excellent player made a particular call on the ice that he may not have made. He knew that his skills as a player may not translate easily to being an effective leader. That’s not to say he wasn’t influential to a massive number of hockey players, including other greats such as Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky; he also made several hockey tutorial books and videos during his lifetime. He just knew that sometimes a great writer can be a really shitty editor.
While this piece isn’t meant to discredit John Young, many reminiscences — the most notable being Mike Mullane’s Shuttle-era memoir Riding Rockets — discuss his deficiencies as a manager before and during 1986’s Challenger disaster. If you read Young’s autobiography, 2012’s Forever Young, written with James R. Hansen, you will see that, unlike Howe, he seems to have little awareness of his drawbacks as a leader. Again, this isn’t meant to tear down Young’s character (or Howe’s), but not every great “player” is intended to be a great leader. Young was arguably one of the best at engineering and piloting at NASA, but those skills don’t always translate to the boardroom. Both Howe and Young’s statuses as industry legends cannot be disputed, even if they aren’t remembered as great managers.
Monsieur Jean Béliveau and General Thomas Stafford
A 2019 Twitter/X post by Michael Barber read, “Interviewing Ted Lindsay once, I mentioned Jean Béliveau. Ted stood up, out of camera frame. When I asked why, he said he always stands up when he hears Jean’s name, out of respect.” This is incredible partly because a photo of the Red Wings’ occasionally asshole-ish “Terrible Ted” nearly being blinded via hockey stick by an enraged (but still very handsome) Béliveau during a 1950s game exists on the Internet. But the elegant, tall man nicknamed “Le Gros Bill” (“The Gentle Giant”) inspired devotion and respect despite the occasional unsavory twists and turns of the game, long after the game wrapped.
Just as Howe’s career paralleled that of Young’s, there are similarities between Béliveau and General Thomas Stafford, who, like Young, was part of 1962’s astronaut group. Like Béliveau and Howe, Stafford and Young were good friends; they even flew a mission together — 1969’s Apollo 10, which Stafford commanded, and Young flew as command module pilot. Let’s consider Apollo 10 Stafford and Young’s “All-Star Game” (alongside Gene Cernan, of course). Béliveau and Stafford were widely respected in ways far beyond their respective careers and had incredible leadership pedigree. When team captain Béliveau retired from the Montreal Canadiens after securing another Stanley Cup (and entered the Hockey Hall of Fame alongside Howe around the same time, the requisite wait time being waived for both), he became an executive with his former team. Unlike Howe, Béliveau excelled in this role, but there were notable differences from Howe’s situation.
Unlike Howe, Béliveau was actually allowed to make decisions that affected the team’s trajectory and wasn’t stored away as meticulously coiffed window dressing in the Canadiens’ front office, to be retrieved occasionally as a human cardboard cutout. Béliveau’s autobiography My Life in Hockey radically differs from Howe’s, just as Stafford’s We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Age (written with Michael Cassutt) is miles apart from Forever Young. While Howe’s earlier remembrances are folksy recollections of growing up with a large family in Saskatoon, Béliveau discusses…death. The first chapter is all about death; it’s a laundry list of deceased fellow players and colleagues, including fellow Canadiens legend Maurice “Rocket” Richard, and becomes a rumination about his own frightening early 2000s battle with throat cancer. The tone is very cerebral and jarring for a sports figure’s memoir, as Béliveau admits the decline of his fellow Canadiens — and eventually, him — is especially saddening since, at their height, they were incredible physical specimens.
Much of Monsieur Béliveau’s book isn’t even devoted to his life, just as General Stafford’s We Have Capture isn’t solely devoted to his space accomplishments. Instead, Béliveau devotes much of his literary time to discussing other players he admired, even giving Bobby Orr an entire chapter. This, of course, says an awful lot about Béliveau’s humility. But while both Béliveau and Stafford provide master classes in giving others the credit they deserve, that’s not to say they didn’t possess insight into others’ egos. (Spoiler alert: some “others” had egos the size of Canada…or the Moon.)
One of the more hilarious parts of Béliveau’s autobiography involves the time when former colleague Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion briefly became the Canadiens’ head coach in 1979. Béliveau, like Howe, had well-honed instincts about how well former players could function as coaches and did not have high hopes that Geoffrion would work out for the team. The graceful yet nonchalantly aggressive Béliveau described Geoffrion’s late 1970s appearance in a manner that suggested the latter man entered the Canadiens’ locker room smelling like Jolly Ranchers, Marlboro Reds, chewing gum, and whatever else offended Béliveau’s more refined sensibilities:
I was sitting with [former player and coach] Toe Blake in the back room when Irving entered the room with Boom Boom. My former roommate wore an Armani suit and dark glasses. His hair was permed, a popular style at the time. Toe and I looked at each other but said nothing. Boom’s first official statement was one he never should have made, publicly or otherwise. “Pressure?” he said. “I’m used to it; it doesn’t bother me.” Conscious of his history in New York and Atlanta [he quit coaching both teams], perhaps he thought it was good strategy to pre-empt the obvious question.
As Béliveau slyly predicted, Geoffrion eventually quit coaching the Canadiens mid-season due to “stress.” This paragraph almost echoes an eerily similar situation in We Have Capture when former astronaut and flashy clothes aficionado Buzz Aldrin briefly became the commandant of the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base:
Buzz showed up with the news that he was returning to the Air Force as commandant of the test pilot school at Edwards. I could see trouble right away. “Look, Buzz,” I told him. “You shot down two and a half MiGs in Korea, and you’ve done a good technical and flying job in the program here. But remember, you’re still not a test pilot.
“There’s a hell of an old boys club out at Edwards. There are two factions — the test pilot school, and flight test ops. Flight test ops has always looked down on the test pilot school as second-class. If you’re going to go, go with some humility, and listen. Don’t talk! Don’t be in transmit mode.”
Unfortunately, Buzz barely lasted six months in the job before he took medical retirement.
While Béliveau died nearly a decade ago in December 2014, Stafford’s recent passing not only inspired tributes to a pioneering astronaut but also remembrances of a consummate leader who broke Aldrin’s “Edwards curse” and returned to the Air Force successfully thanks to his ability to stay humble and to listen.
Like Béliveau, Stafford’s name will inspire salutes from those lucky to have known him long after his death.
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