Chops' Green has seen the mountaintop

By ROB GRAY • robgray@dmreg.com • December 20, 2008

As Mark Messier, by then 43 and a six-time Stanley Cup champion, skated to a standing ovation, colleagues tapped their sticks on the ice, the ultimate rink-based round of applause.

The historic moment: Messier's last NHL game, March 31, 2004, capping one of pro hockey's most decorated careers.

The site: Manhattan's sports mecca, Madison Square Garden.
One of the tappers: current Iowa Chops forward Josh Green, who suits up today at Wells Fargo Arena for a 7 p.m. American Hockey League divisional game against Peoria.

"I was just happy to be in the lineup that night playing," recalled Green, who has played for seven NHL teams and has eight goals and 11 assists this season. "Just to be involved in that, being a part of it and sitting across from him was pretty cool."

Green, taken by the Los Angeles Kings in the second round of the 1996 NHL draft, has had a pretty "cool" career, too.

In 322 NHL games, he's notched 35 goals and 39 assists, but hasn't become a fixture at any of his top-level stops.

It's a well-traveled way of life that the 31-year-old Camrose, Alberta, native has come to accept.

"I think early on it was tough for me because I didn't envision my career going that way - bouncing from team to team, going up and down," said the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Green.

"You just kind of take it as it goes and wherever you are, you try to build some roots, make some friends and play as hard as you can. Kind of treat it like a job that way - 'Where are they sending me now?' "

That's Des Moines and the Chops, of course.

"We play in a great city and a great facility," Green said. "A lot of the guys live out in West Des Moines - especially guys who have wives or girlfriends. It's a nice, clean, safe area, so I was happy about that. Keep the wife happy at home, you'll be happy at the rink."

Green is pleased with his team's performance so far - the Chops entered Friday with a 15-9-1-2 mark - but hopes another big push comes soon in the stacked West Division.

"We're starting to get into the dog days now, December, January, February," Green said. "The teams that are contenders try to separate themselves from the pack, and if you fall into a lull you find yourself at the bottom very fast."

Iowa coach Gord Dineen called Green "the consummate professional," a profile in stability and work ethic.

"He rubs off on the younger guys," Dineen said. "They see what he does and the way he approaches it and that's huge. He's still got ambition to play in the NHL, which he should. He's got every capability of being there."

Proof of that resides in both the present and the past.

That night at Madison Square Garden, Green said, Messier presented a signed stick to each player, including him.

Green also scored that night, giving him another treasured memento from a game he won't forget.

"I took the game sheet and I have it framed at home," he said.