Thomas D. Green

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Thomas Daniel Green (December 21, 1857 – November 29, 1935) was an early Canadian amateur ice hockey player, a hockey executive, and also an engineer and land surveyor. A Mohawk, he may have been Canada’s first Mohawk licensed as a land surveyor. Because of his Mohawk status, he faced discrimination when seeking a full-time government job. He was born near Brantford, Ontario, the youngest of six children, and attended the Mohawk Institute in Brantford. After excelling there, he was encouraged to take Brantford High School’s entrance exam. In 1875 he earned the top score among 41 Brant County applicants and funded his schooling by tutoring others. He earned a B.Sc. from McGill College in Montreal in 1880 and played hockey for McGill in the 1883 Montreal Winter Carnival.

After finishing school, he moved to Ottawa to seek government work, but only found temporary land-survey roles; a permanent position was blocked despite a recommendation from Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. In Ottawa he joined the Ottawa Hockey Club for the 1883–84 season, and in 1886 he became the first president of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, considered the first organized ice hockey league. Green later worked as a land surveyor in Ontario, then moved west to survey mines in the Yukon, plan town sites in Alberta, and lay out rail lines across Western Canada. He died in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, at age 77.