Gordie Howe's Goals per Arena
It goes without saying that Gordie Howe was one of the greatest players in the history of the NHL. Over 26 seasons, from 1946-47 to 1970-71 with the Detroit Red Wings and 1979-80 with the Hartford Whalers, he scored 801 regular-season goals. He second only to Wayne Gretzky in number of goals scored.Where did he score all those goals? Here is a breakdown of the goals he scored at each NHL arena. He scored in 21 different arenas, playing for Detroit and Hartford, and against 14 opponents. The list does not include goals scored while playing for the Houston Aeros or New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association.
| Arena | Goals | Notes | Olympia Stadium | 441 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Chicago Stadium | 75 | 72 with Detroit Red Wings, 3 with Hartford Whalers. | Boston Garden | 65 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Montreal Forum | 59 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Madison Square Garden (original) | 56 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Maple Leaf Gardens | 54 | 53 with Detroit Red Wings, 1 with Hartford Whalers. | Pittsburgh Civic Arena | 6 | 5 with Detroit Red Wings, 1 with Hartford Whalers. | Great Western Forum | 6 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | St. Louis Arena | 6 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Madison Square Garden (new) | 5 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Met Center | 5 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Philadelphia Spectrum | 5 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Hartford Civic Center | 4 | All with Hartford Whalers. | Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum | 4 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Springfield Civic Center | 4 | All with Hartford Whalers. | Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum | 1 | With Detroit Red Wings. | Buffalo Memorial Auditorium | 1 | With Detroit Red Wings. | Capital Centre | 1 | With Hartford Whalers. | Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum | 1 | With Detroit Red Wings. | Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena | 1 | With Detroit Red Wings. | McNichols Sports Arena | 1 | With Hartford Whalers. |
|---|
Howe was by far the highest scoring player at Olympia Stadium, the home arena of the Detroit Red Wings from 1927 to 1979. The next highest scorer at Olympia was Alex Delvecchio, who scored an impressive but far fewer 245 goals.
Howe scored at Olympia in his first game as a Red Wing, against Toronto, on October 16, 1946. All of his goals in Detroit were scored while playing with the Red Wings - by the time the Whalers made their first trip to Detroit, the Red Wings had moved into Joe Louis Arena, and Howe never scored there. His last goal, number 801, came against Detroit in his final game, in Hartford on April 6, 1980.
Most of his away goals were against the other Original Six teams, the only other teams in the league for the first 21 seasons of his career. He was most successful at Chicago Stadium, where he scored 73 goals with Detroit, and another 3 with Hartford. He scored 65 at Boston Garden, 59 at the Montreal Forum, 56 at the original Madison Square Garden, and 54 at Maple Leaf Gardens, the site of his first away goal in 1947.
He also scored 4 goals against the Chicago Blackhawks at Chicago's home games elsewhere in the Midwest in the early 1950s. He scored 2 at St. Louis Arena, 1 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, and 1 at Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum in Omaha, Nebraska.
In the expansion era, he scored 6 times at Los Angeles' Great Western Forum. The Kings also played home games at Long Beach Arena and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena early in the 1967 season. Howe scored one goal at the Memorial Sports Arena. He scored 5 at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, and another 4 at St. Louis Arena against the Blues. Five of his goals came at the current Madison Square Garden, and another 5 each at Minnesota's Met Center and the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
During Hartford’s first NHL season in 1979-80, the Whalers played some of their home games at the Springfield Civic Center. The roof of the Hartford Civic Center had collapsed during the 1977-78 WHA season, and the arena was under repair until January, 1980. Of his 15 goals with Hartford, Howe scored 4 goals at each arena. Another 4 came against the Seals at Oakland Coliseum.
He scored one goal each at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, Capital Centre (his final NHL goal on the road, in 1979), and McNichols Sports Arena against the Colorado Rockies.
Howe never scored 50 goals in a season, although he came close with 49 in 1952-53. He led the league in goals only five times: 1950-51, 1951-52, 1952-53, 1956-57, and 1962-63. However, he did led the Red Wings in goals 15 times: 11 seasons in a row from 1949-50 to 1959-60, another 3 seasons from 1961-62 to 1963-64, and 1967-68.
Playoffs
| Arena | Goals | Notes | Olympia Stadium | 39 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Chicago Stadium | 10 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Montreal Forum | 9 | 8 with Detroit Red Wings, 1 with Hartford Whalers. | Maple Leaf Gardens | 8 | All with Detroit Red Wings. | Boston Garden | 1 | With Detroit Red Wings. | Madison Square Garden (old) | 1 | With Detroit Red Wings. |
|---|
Howe only ever scored in the Original Six arenas during the playoffs, and only one of his 68 playoff goals was scored with the Whalers.
