Rod Gilbert in an early 1960s New York Rangers portrait, and with the team during his 1970s prime.
"Never saw Gordie, or his elbow. I'm waking up on the ice to ammonia and smelling salts, seeing the lights in the ceiling, and as I'm being helped off, the linesman skates by and almost whispers to me, 'It was No. 9 …'
"I figure, 'OK, I'll pick my spot and get my revenge.' We played in the League together for nine years, but it just never happened."
More than four decades later, Gilbert and Howe were at a banquet at the 2004 NHL All-Star Game, at different tables, and Gilbert was regaling fellow diners with the story.
"What I want," he told his audience, "is to live long enough to visit Gordie in his retirement home, come up behind him in his wheelchair, dump him on the floor, walk away, and have one of the nurses lean down to him and say, 'It was No. 7 ...'"