Before The Rangers, Kitchener Had The Greenshirts And Canucks

The Kitchener Rangers came into the Ontario Hockey Association (now Ontario Hockey League) for the 1963-64 season and have since established themselves as one of the most successful and most popular teams in the league. However, this was not the first major junior team to hail from Kitchener and call the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium home.

The Kitchener Greenshirts began play in the OHA for the 1951-52 season and played two more plus an additional two as the Kitchener Canucks. In their first season, they finished sixth in the ten team league, qualifying them for the post season. The Greenshirts fell to the St. Catherines TeePees in the quarter-finals, three games to one. The team was led by Gary Edmundson and Orval Tessier. Edmundston would go on to play a total of 43 NHL games with the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs while Tessier did slightly better playing 59 total games with the Canadiens and Boston Bruins. Orval had a three year stint in the 1980’s as head coach of the Chicago Black Hawks, being named the Jack Adams Award winner in 1982-83 as the NHL’s coach of the year.

Their second season was a disaster, finishing dead last out of nine teams. The most successful player to come out of that team was Bob McCord, a right winger that played in 316 NHL games with the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota North Stars and St. Louis Blues.

Season three for the Greenshirts was similar to their first. The team finished the regular season fifth out of nine with a roster of players that would never make an impact in the NHL. The playoffs ended in the first round with a three games to one loss to the Toronto Marlboros.

A name change to the Canucks did not bring any more success. Kitchener finished last out of eight teams in the 1954-55 standings and did not qualify for the post season. The following season saw a marked improvement as the Canucks finished second in the seven team OHA. However, it was a first round loss again, this time to the Barrie Flyers. On a bright note, Stan Baliuk of the Canucks was the Eddie Powers Trophy winner as the OHA’s leading scorer with 104 points.

The team uprooted and moved east to become the Peterborough Petes for the 1956-57 season. Canucks players did have more success in the NHL than those that played for the Greenshirts. Wayne Connelly played 543 NHL games, Kent Douglas played 428, Howie Young played 336 and Irv Spencer played 230. Willie O’Ree went on to play just 45 games in the NHL but he was an extremely important individual in the history of hockey. O’Ree was the first black player to play in the NHL. His 45 games were with the Boston Bruins. He was given the Order of Canada in 2008.