Gordie Howe Bridge immortalized through art

He has done it again.

Peter Solly, owner of MacDonald’s Automotive Supercentre on Eugenie Street East, has added to his collection of sculptures with his latest creation, a replica of the Gordie Howe Bridge.

“A friend of mine from Assumption High School called me and said Pete, you got to build a Gordie Howe for the Gordie Howe Bridge,” Solly explained.

“I'm thinking, okay, sounds great, but how am I going to do this? How am I going to incorporate a bridge with Gordie Howe?”

After some thought, he created a unique blend of the hockey legend and the sleekly designed bridge. Considered folk art, the sculpture has a blend of muffler parts and metal and took hours to weld and paint. The bridge features tin-sized Gordie Howe holding two hockey sticks with the Canadian and American flags as butt ends. The bridge deck came from a nearby sign.

“There was a real crazy accident here [near the shop] about two months ago where a lady drove over and cut the median sign right in half,” Solly said.

“Me and my son went to scavenge the parts off the side of the road and brought them back and this is the decking of the bridge.”

To put the proverbial cherry on top, Solly installed mini cars on the deck.

“This one is definitely my favorite one,” said Solly’s son, Josh. “A lot of work goes into it, painting, welding and obviously a lot of imagination as well. He [his dad] has a lot of that so I'm proud of him and I'm sure a lot of people are going to like it a lot.”

Solly knew he wanted to display the Gordie Howe Bridge in a public place. Ward 3 city councilor, Renaldo Agostino, learned of the sculpture and suggested the Art Gallery of Windsor. Officials were more than happy to welcome Gordie to the building.

“When I found out about this amazing art piece, I thought no better place than the AWE (Art Windsor-Essex), give people a chance to come down here and see this great gallery and see this great piece of work, the great piece of art of a great man.” Agostino said.

The sculpture can be found on the second floor, well lit by natural light in the south side staircase.

Solly has immortalized legends like Prince, The Blues Brothers and Taylor Swift, but doesn’t know how he’ll top the Gordie Howe Bridge.

“It’s gonna take some time. It’s gonna take some thinking. Sky’s the limit right?” Solly said with a laugh.