Was the record-breaker an assist or a goal? I had it backwards in my head for years. So I went and looked. He tied Howe at 1,850 on an assist in the first, then sat on it most of the night, and the one that passed him was a goal with 53 seconds left in the third. Tied the game 4-4 while he was at it. Kings got it in overtime.
And he did it in Edmonton, in the building he'd worked in for nine years, against the guys who used to pass it to him. They stopped the game right there, and Howe came out onto the ice and stood with him, 1989, the guy whose number he'd just walked past! The Oilers had to stand around for eleven minutes waiting to go lose a hockey game. I'd have been chirping. Beautiful night, though.
The games column is the bit that makes a table go quiet, Toby. Howe needed 1,767 games to build that total; Gretzky was there in 780. Less than half the hockey.
Eleven minutes is a long time for an organist, Toby. Whoever was up there had to vamp through the hugging, the speeches and Howe walking out, and nobody in the building was listening to a note of it. Hardest shift in the house that night.