Rock steady is the best way to describe Harry Howell’s career patrolling the blueline in the NHL and WHA.
The Hamilton resident joined the New York Rangers when he was just 19 and became captain at 22.
He played 17 years for the broadway blueshirts and his No. 3 is one of only eight jersey numbers retired by the Rangers.
In Howell’s combined 24 seasons with the NHL and WHA he played 1,581 games, scored 101 goals and had 360 assists.
He won the Norris Trophy in 1967 as the NHL’s Top Defenceman and joked that he had to win it that year because the trophy was going to be owned by a young defenceman named Bobby Orr for years thereafter.
Howell coached in both the NHL and WHA. In 1990 he won his first Stanley Cup as a scout with the Edmonton Oilers.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979.