# Old Gordie Howe quote about patience

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 17, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019 "2001-10-17T17:52:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![spankboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@spankboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spankboy)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019/1 "2001-10-17T17:52:04Z")

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Anyone have the verbatim quote that Gordie Howe had about patience? Something along the lines of ‘Kids nowadays don’t know anything about patience. They want to retaliate right away. It doesn’t have to be the same game, or even the same saeson to extract retribution’.

That ring a bell to any hockey dopers out there?

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**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2001, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019/2 "2001-10-17T21:57:37Z")

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I’ve heard this quote before too. Fortunately, [Brainy Quote](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/index.html) has two quotes attributed to Howe. Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of them.

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**Author:** ![chique](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@chique](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chique)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2001, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019/3 "2001-10-18T00:27:11Z")

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I’m sorry, I haven’t found the answer to your question yet, but in searching I came across this little gem:

> [@](#):
>
> “That’s a Gordie Howe hatrick: 2 goals and a fight.”

😃

[sub]Gawd, that was a major hijack…I’ll keep looking now.[/sub]

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**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2001, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019/4 "2001-10-18T23:15:47Z")

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I once heard a Gordie Howe story related to this question. Another player rang Gordie’s bell brutally. Rather than getting thrown out of that crucial game by retaliating, Howe calmly played out the game. After that, Every time he encountered the goon on the ice, Gordie told him, “Soon…” The poor guy wasted a lot of energy looking over his shoulder for Gordie’s revenge.

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**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-gordie-howe-quote-about-patience/88019/5 "2001-10-19T04:12:33Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> “That’s a Gordie Howe hatrick: 2 goals and a fight.”

I always thought (and heard) that a “Gordie Howe hattrick” was: a goal, an assist, and a fighting major.