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hockey stick clubbed
down on Ted Green’s un-
protected head, cracking
his skull and driving bone chips
into his brain.
The defenceman crumpled to
the ice, his head involuntarily
thrashing from side to side. A
grotesque indentation could be
seen near his right temple. The
left side of his body was partly
paralyzed. His eyes were glassy
and, as he tried to talk, only
mumbling noises could be
heard. His face was contorted in-
to a frozen grimace.
At a hospital in Ottawa that
night, Mr. Green asked a Catholic
priest to administer the last rites.
For his part in a stick-swinging
duel that ended with his injury,
the National Hockey League sus-
pended him for 13 games – to be
served if he ever returned to ac-
tion. He also faced a criminal
charge from the incident. Even if
he survived, it was thought his
hockey career was over.
“Death gave me a little brush
on the shoulder,” he said from
his hospital bed while recuperat-
ing from emergency brain
surgery.
Mr. Green, who lived with a
protective acrylic plate in his
head for a half-century before
dying Oct. 8, at the age of 79, re-
covered from the devastating
head injury to win two Stanley
Cups as a player with the Boston
Bruins and another five behind
the bench as an assistant coach
and co-coach with the Edmon-
ton Oilers.
Terrible Teddy Green, as he
was known, was a fearsome op-
ponent, a rock-solid defenceman
with a scofflaw’s disdain for the
rule book and a street brawler’s
willingness to engage in pugi-
lism. He relied on instinct and
intuition more than skill. Mr.
Green was said to be the mean-
est person to wear Boston’s
black-and-gold sweater since the
retirement of the notorious Ed-
die Shore. At 5-foot-10 and 190-
pounds, the player had a
crooked nose, a boxer’s hard face
and a smile that seemed more
like the smirk of an ill-tempered
drunk at the end of the bar.
Edward Joseph Green was
born March 23, 1940, in Eriksdale,
Man., a farming community
about 120 kilometres north of
Winnipeg. He was one of three
sons born to Hortense Glemas,
who had been placed in an or-
phanage at the age of 8, and John
Joseph (Jack) Green, who
worked for 30 years as a security
guard and carman’s helper with
the Canadian National Railway.
As a teenager, young Teddy skat-
ed for the Norwood Falcons,
whose outdoor rink was down-
wind from Winnipeg’s stock-
yards, under the tutelage of Mike
Yaschuk, a former professional.
He was taught to throw a hip-
check by former NHL player Bill
Juzda.
He played junior hockey for
the St. Boniface Canadiens, lead-
ing the league in penalty min-
utes in his first full season. The
tough defenceman won a Memo-
rial Cup junior championship
when added to the playoff roster
of the Winnipeg Braves in 1959.
He celebrated by filling the cup
with champagne and pouring it
over the heads of teammates.
The Montreal Canadiens invit-
ed him to training camp in the
fall, only to release him to the
Winnipeg Warriors of the West-
ern Hockey League. Boston
claimed his NHL rights with the
second pick in the 1960 intra-
league draft.
He missed the start of the
1961-62 season with a broken
knuckle on his left hand, suf-
fered in a frantic melee in the
crease during which he punched,
in turn, Frank Mahovlich, Bob
Nevin, a hapless lineman and an
unyielding goal post in an exhi-
bition game at Niagara Falls, Ont.
He returned to action weeks later
with a cast still protecting his in-
jury.
The rugged rearguard became
a favourite of the Boston Garden
crowd early in his rookie cam-
paign. In one December game
against the Toronto Maple Leafs,
Mr. Green waited all of two min-
utes after the puck dropped be-
fore engaging in a wild donny-
brook, beating up Dick Duff and
George Armstrong. The Boston
Globe wrote approvingly the
next day that the new player
“punches with the rapidity of a
machine-gun.” Mr. Green was as-
sessed two fighting majors and
an automatic 10-minute miscon-
duct and, after serving his penal-
ty time, spent the rest of the
game on the Boston bench, evenas the crowd chanted, “We want
Green!”
The defenceman was assessed
more than 100 minutes in penal-
ties in each of his first five sea-
sons. The hooligan shenanigans
did little to help Boston climb
out of the basement of the six-
team league, but astute trades
and the arrival of whiz-kid de-
fenceman Bobby Orr, coinciding
with the adoption of a robust,
physical style of play, trans-
formed the sad-sack squad into
the Big Bad Bruins by the late
1960s.
After the 1968-69 season, Mr.
Green was named to the NHL’s
second all-star team, recognition
he had developed into one of the
league’s elite players.
The Bruins were preparing for
the club’s first serious challenge
for the championship in a quar-
ter-century when Mr. Green suf-
fered his severe injury. In a mea-
ningless preseason exhibition
game in Ottawa on Sept. 21, 1969,
Mr. Green tussled with left-win-
ger Wayne Maki of the St. Louis
Blues.
“As I trapped the puck behind
the net, the kid hit me from be-
hind, and I got a little ticked off,
as I always do when that hap-
pens,” Mr. Green recounted in his
1971 book,High Stick, written
with Al Hirshberg. “But my first
obligation was to clear the puck.
I kicked it with my skate up to
my stick and shot it out around
the boards to our right wing.
Then I turned to take care of the
guy who hit me.”
Mr. Green shoved a gloved left
hand in Mr. Maki’s face. The play-
er retaliated by shoving the
blade of his stick into the defen-ceman, a “filthy trick” known as
spearing. The Boston player
swung his stick, catching Mr. Ma-
ki on the bicep. Mr. Green would
have no memory of what hap-
pened next.
Mr. Maki took a lumberjack’s
swing, clubbing Mr. Green on the
head at the point where the
blade meets the shaft – the most
unyielding part of the stick. As
the defenceman later wrote, “no-
body really knows what damage
a hockey stick can cause until it
happens.” The Bruins, led by Mr.
Orr, charged off the bench with
the intention of attacking Mr.
Maki, who was ushered off the
ice.
An emergency 2½-hour oper-
ation was performed that night
by doctor Michael Richard. Days
later, a buildup of blood and
swelling of the brain made an-
other emergency operation nec-
essary. The player was left with
partial paralysis on his left side.
Mr. Maki was suspended 30
games by the NHL. Both players
faced a charge of assault causing
bodily harm, believed to be the
first instance of criminal charges
laid as the result of action in an
NHL game. Facing a two-year
prison term if convicted, both
players were acquitted in sepa-
rate trials. (Mr. Maki later starred
for the expansion Vancouver Ca-
nucks, scoring 25 goals in their
inaugural NHL season. He died
of a brain tumour in 1974, at the
age of 29.)
Mr. Green missed the entire
1969-70 season, at the end of
which the Bruins won the Stan-
ley Cup. Their recuperating
teammate was voted a full share
of bonus money and had hisname engraved on the Cup. He
returned to action the following
season, wearing a bubble-style
helmet to protect his injury. Still
a rugged presence, Mr. Green en-
gaged in fights less frequently.
He won a second Stanley Cup
with Boston in 1972 before jump-
ing to the rival World Hockey As-
sociation, where he won three
Avco Cup championships with
the New England Whalers and
Winnipeg Jets over seven sea-
sons. He needed five operations
on his arthritic knees over his ca-
reer before retiring as a player in- He had scored 48 goals with
254 assists in 620 NHL games.
Three years later, he was hired
as an assistant coach for the Ed-
monton Oilers, adding his name
to the Stanley Cup five more
times as the Wayne Gretzky-led
team enjoyed a dynasty.
Mr. Green became the Oilers’
head coach before the 1991-92
season, by which time Mr. Gretz-
ky had been traded and the Oil-
ers were rebuilding. The coach
was fired after recording just
three wins and three ties after
the first 24 games of the 1993-94
season. He continued working as
an assistant coach before taking
a similar post with the New York
Rangers.
Away from the rink, Mr. Green
pursued a business placing auto-
mated, skate-sharpening ma-
chines in Edmonton-area rinks,
sporting-goods stores and Esso
service stations. He was also a
long-time volunteer at the Mus-
tard Seed support centre in in-
ner-city Edmonton. He suffered
long-lasting physical ailments, as
well as depression, from his head
injury.
Mr. Green has been inducted
into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of
Fame in 1985, the Manitoba
Sports Hall of Fame in 2003 and
the World Hockey Association
Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minn., in
Mr. Green, who died after a
long illness, leaves Pat, his wife
of 56 years, and three adult chil-
dren. A complete list of survivors
was unavailable.
A fierce competitor on the ice,
Mr. Green was treasured in hock-
ey circles for his wise-cracking
humour. He was coaching the
Oilers when centreman Shaun
Van Allen was knocked uncon-
scious during a game in Wash-
ington.
When he was informed the
groggy player woke up not
knowing who he was, the coach
responded: “Tell him he’s Wayne
Gretzky.”
Special to The Globe and MailTED GREEN
ATHLETE, 79The St.Louis Blues’ WayneMaki, far left, moves in on the Boston Bruins’ Ted Green, far right, during a game in Ottawa in September, 1969. Within moments, the scene would turn into
an all-out brawl, withMr. Green suffering permanent brain injuries. It was the first instance of criminal charges laid as the result of action in an NHLgame.THECANADIANPRESS
FIERCEBRUINSDEFENCEMAN
WONOVERFANSWITHHISFISTS
Afternarrowlysurvivingaseriouson-iceinjury,
hewentontowintwoStanleyCupsasaplayer
inBostonandanotherfiveasassistantcoach
andco-coachwiththeEdmontonOilers
Mr. Green, right, examines a new safety-helmet model created by Charlie
Patterson, left, just days after surgeons planted a plate in his head
because of the injuries sustained in the fight withMr.Maki.JOHNMAIOLATOMHAWTHORN