Joe Watson faced Gordie Howe for the first time at Boston Garden on October 19, 1966, and spent the rest of that night learning who he had just picked a fight with.
It started in the corner, where the young Bruins defenseman collected a puck and took a hit he wasn’t expecting.
“A puck goes into the corner and when I get it, somebody hits me really hard. Oh my God, that hurt,” Watson said, per NBC Sports Philadelphia. “My natural reaction was to turn around and elbow the guy. Which I did.”
He skated back to the bench without knowing who he’d hit. A teammate filled him in.
“I go back to the bench and Bobby Orr says to me, ‘You’re gonna pay for that.’ It was Howe,” Watson said.
What did Gordie Howe say to Joe Watson?
Orr’s prediction didn’t take long to come true.
“So in the second period, we were fighting for position in front of the net. Gordie got me right in my nose. Broke my nose with his elbow,” Watson said. “He said, ‘Welcome to the league, rookie.'”
There’s a detail that makes Orr’s warning even better. That season opener was Orr’s own NHL debut, meaning the voice of experience on the Boston bench belonged to a player who had been in the league for roughly one period himself. Orr got his own Howe lesson the same night, later recalling that he admired one of his own passes a little too long before finding himself flat on the ice.
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Watson waited five years to settle the account, and when he did, it cost Howe more than a nose.
“I do remember in 1971, I got even with Gordie. I broke three of his ribs,” Watson said. “We were fighting for position in front of the net in Philadelphia. Frank Mahovlich threw the puck out to Gordie and he got it. Just as he got it, I brought him down and he fell on my skates and cracked three of his ribs.”
Even then, Howe got the last word.
“We’re laying there and Gordie says, ‘Don’t move.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry, I can’t. You’re laying on my knees,'” Watson said.
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