The new international bridge between Windsor and Detroit will be known as The Gordie Howe International Bridge. Prime Minister Harper and Governor Rick Snyder made the announcement in Windsor Thursday afternoon alongside three of Howe’s children.
The bridge is estimated to cost $2.1 billion and will be the second bridge in the area linking Canada to the U.S. and is expected to be operational in 2020. The privately-owned Ambassador Bridge was finished in 1929. Howe himself was not present.
He has been undergoing treatment after suffering a serious stroke. “Back in 2011, Gordie’s son, Marty Howe, told the Windsor Star that he wanted the bridge named after his father.“It would be a nice honour to have the new bridge named after Gordie as he was born in Canada,”
Marty wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper.“He crossed the bridge on his way to Detroit to start his long lasting hockey career.” According to the Detroit Free Press, the idea to name the bridge after Howe, now 87, came from an Ontario Trucking Association official, who suggested it at a hearing in Lansing, Mich., in the summer of 2010.
