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By Phillip Ramati
Telegraph Staff Writer
Ex-Whoopee star Mark Green always presented a pleasant public face. But it was his inner demons that led him to a baffling and deadly decision.
Mark Green always seemed to make a good first impression, with a flair for the dramatic.
As a rookie in the East Coast Hockey League in 1991-92, he became the first Johnstown Chief ever to score 50 goals in 50 games, scoring two goals in the contest that "brought 4,040 fans to their feet, with some of those dancing in the aisles as the loud horn blared in the background," according to The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat.
In his first game with the Fayetteville Force, a more veteran Green introduced himself with a four-goal performance that sparked his new team to 10 wins in the next 12 games.
His first game in Macon with the Whoopee might have been the most memorable. With 6.9 seconds left on the clock and the Macon down 4-3, Macon center Joe Suk won the faceoff and the puck moved around to Green, who was standing near the boards between the circle and the blue line. Green fired a rocket past the goaltender for a hat trick to force a shootout and, eventually, a 5-4 Whoopee win.
"The one great memory I have of him," said former Whoopee assistant coach Dave Starman, now a broadcaster in New York. "That play was drawn up that morning. We set him up on a 6-on-5. He shot it while backing up; it went over the goalie's shoulder and hit so hard that it popped the bottle off the net. I even sent the tape of it to ESPN. I still talk about (that goal) a lot. It was one of the greatest moments in my time in Macon. There was not another goal scorer in the league who could do that."
The sense of joie de vivre he brought to the ice was with him when you met Green off it.
"Teammate-wise, he was a great guy in the locker room," said Suk, now the general manager of the Macon Trax. "Everyone seemed to like him. ... He was a smart guy, a real people person. He was always one of the older guys on our team, but he was generous; he'd hang out with the younger guys and play golf. He was a sociable guy."
In fact, really, he was just a big kid. Green loved to have fun and enjoyed hanging out with kids, especially his own. He always seemed to have a grin.
"He was warm and friendly," said Beverly Olson, who hired Green to be the general manager of Starcadia in 2001. "He loved kids; he was a kid himself. That's what attracted me to him. The park needed someone like that."
But much of the fun-loving, happy-go-lucky aspects of Green's personality was, to an extent, a facade. Despite his formidable skills, he never stayed with one franchise for very long, playing with 11 teams in nine years. Some ex-teammates described him as "selfish."
Like many athletes who have to spend long stretches on the road, Green ended up developing a vice that would prove to be his undoing. With some, it's drugs or alcohol.
With Green, it was gambling.
It grew to be such a severe problem that he would end up stealing to feed his habit. That was what forced him and his family to leave Macon, when he stole money from Starcadia.
But like most addictions, that wasn't the end. Green was under investigation for stealing from the car dealership at which he was working in Canton, N.Y. He was separated, living apart from his wife and kids. And his gambling was more desperate.
Also like most addicts, he hid his troubles well. There was no alcohol on his breath or needlemarks in his veins. And when someone saw him in public, there was always the big, toothy grin.
So when Green, 36, decided to hang himself in the family's garage on a Monday afternoon on Oct. 4, like one of his trademark wicked-hard slapshots, it was something no one saw coming.
According to the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, an average of 30,000 Americans commit suicide each year. In addition, an average of 509,000 people are treated in emergency rooms for attempted suicide. There are twice as many suicide deaths in this country than there from AIDS or HIV. More than 20 percent of suicides involving hanging/suffocation, second only to death by gunshots.
As with most suicides, no one had a clue.
Green's wife, his family, his friends, his ex-teammates, none of them had any idea that not only was he desperate enough to kill himself, but that he would ever even entertain the notion in the first place.
"I didn't see this coming; I didn't see the signs," said Green's widow, Tracy. "He waited for me to go to work. He waved and smiled like there was nothing wrong. It's so unreal."
Green's parents, Paul and Doris, also had no indication.
"I didn't," said Paul Green of Watertown, N.Y. "I wish we did. I hadn't been in close contact with him for three months. It did come as quite a shock."
People who saw Green in the days before his death said he seemed just as normal, just as cheerful as he had ever been, even with the police investigation going on at the time.
"He was here for an alumni golf outing," said Gary Mikel, the sports information director at Green's alma mater, Clarkson University. "About a month or so (earlier), he had gotten into trouble again. But he seemed fine.
"I was shocked (at Green's death). I knew he was in some trouble, but I saw him at a hockey game the Saturday before. He was smiling."
The news spread quickly through the hockey world, always a small and tight-knit community. Former teammates, coaches and fans reacted with shock. It wasn't just that Green had killed himself; it was that Mark Green, the guy with the grin and the slapshot, killed himself.
"I was stunned, distraught," Suk said. "I thought it was just a rumor. I had to go dig up some evidence to see if it was true. He always looked like a pretty strong person; I still don't believe it. I can believe he's dead, but I can't believe it would be suicide, in all honesty."
Said Starman: "I saw his picture and read the story, and I was very surprised. I was really taken aback by it. ... Being a father, I can't imagine the choice of ever seeing your family again or vice versa. The thing really hit home for me."
Depression, like gambling, can be hidden if a person wants to. Every day in the U.S., an average of 87 people kill themselves.
The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery lists three phases for gambling: the winning phase, the losing phase and the desperation phase, in which a person is described as having remorse, blaming others, alienating family and friends, and illegal acts to finance gambling. Such a person may experience hopelessness, suicide, arrests, divorce and substance abuse.
"He was the star quarterback and a great lacrosse player," Bill Gall said. "Lacrosse was probably his best sport. Hockey may have been only his second- or third-best."
Gall ought to know. He played with or against Green at every level, from high school to college to the pros.
"In high school, he beat us single-handedly," Gall said. "Everyone knew his name."
That continued in college. After being drafted in the ninth round of the NHL draft by Winnipeg, Green elected to go to college instead and lead Clarkson University to the Frozen Four as a senior in 1991.
The transition continued into the pros. Green not only set the 50-goal record as a rookie with Johnstown, but also finished with 68 goals and 47 assists in 64 games that year.
Green had many of the tools that a coach would love. He was big - 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds - with soft hands and a hard shot.
Yet Green never progressed to the more advanced levels of hockey, with the exception of a couple of cups of coffee in the IHL and AHL, the AAA level of the sport. Nor did he stay in one place very long; during his career, he never played two consecutive full seasons in the same city.
It's yet another mystery about Green where there's more speculation than fact.
"The thing with Mark was, he could score," Starman said. "I'm surprised someone didn't give him a sniff because of his great shot."
Green had the numbers to back it up. His best season came with Utica in 1994-95, in which he scored 71 goals and 56 assists in 71 games to share league MVP honors. Looking at the numbers for his career, Green was a player capable of lighting the lamp at least once a night, scoring 490 career goals.
"He was a big man, and sometimes your skating develops later in life," Starman said. "He never got to the next step. He was always conscious of it and he knew it. He used to say, 'I'd give anything to skate like John LeClair.'"
Said Suk: "I think I was surprised (that he was playing in Macon) at the time. I think he had chances (to move up) when he was younger. Things get around in the hockey community. Something kept him down; it was his skating and defensive skills.
"He was a prolific scorer, had big size, was a great passer - if I had my coaching hat on, I can say I'd indeed want him. But at the higher level, you have to play both sides of the puck."
Gall believes that there was something deeper that kept him down, that Green possessed a me-first attitude.
"Stats were important to him," Gall said. "Did wins come first? I don't know if that's the case. He was lazy on defense, and that had something to do with it."
Gall remembers a story from their time together in Utica, when he scored off a slap shot in the final game of the season. According to Gall, Green skated over to him and asked for credit on the goal so as to improve his stats. Gall let him have the credit.
"He was a great player, but a great teammate? I don't know," Gall said. "Maybe he thought he was bigger than anyone else. No one in the league could do what he could do."
The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery: "Pathological gamblers cannot overdose in the conventional sense, but they experience tremendous financial problems that require immediate attention. More resources are available to chemical dependency than gambling addiction, in part because most people do not perceive gambling as potentially addicting. It is very important that pathological gamblers receive crisis stabilization at the beginning of their treatment, because pathological gamblers have a much higher suicide rate that persons addicted to alcohol or drugs."
The rumors that Green stole things were, for many years, just that - rumors.
There had been whispers that he had stolen from both the team and his teammates in Utica, for example.
"I heard that as well," Gall said. "But I never experienced it. Every time someone talks about it, I hear of a new incident."
While some have speculated that it might have been a factor that kept Green from advancing to a higher level or sticking with the same team, he was never charged with anything during his playing career.
Once that was over, however, it became a different story.
Tracy Green knew her husband would gamble in harmless ways; after all, a pro athlete who spends half his season on the road will have his share of card games on the bus or NCAA pools.
"Obviously, when we were living in Georgia, I found out," she said. "But I didn't know how severe it was until (Starcadia) happened."
Green was working as the general manager for Starcadia, a perfect job for him. It allowed him to work and play with kids and it gave the amusement park a local sports star as a draw.
But whether it was the gambling or some form of kleptomania, Green sabotaged himself and was fired by Olson in Dec. 2001.
Green was arrested in New York in March of 2002 for misusing cash and checks from the business as well as using a company credit card to pay for repairs to his motorcycle. Green was eventually sentenced to eight years probation in August of that year and ordered to repay Olson more than $5,000.
"We treated him like a son and he stabbed us in the back," Olson said. "He did it right under our noses. He didn't need it for the money."
The situation was also the first real sign his family had he was gambling, since "what he stole wasn't for fancy cars or a big house. We had nothing to show for it," Tracy Green said.
"He never told me what his problems in (Macon) were to start with," Pau Green said. "It was something he always brushed aside."
Green not only gambled with money, but also with his freedom. After setting up an installment plan to pay back Starcadia, he stopped paying after the third month, according to Olson.
"We put pressure on the probation officer, but she said it was just a hopeless case," Olson said.
In fact, a harsher penalty might have had the effect of forcing Green onto the straight and narrow before he ran into more legal troubles. According to Olson, Green actually took tens of thousands from Starcadia, but the court was only able to make a case for $5,175.
Who could say what effect that had on him? Did Green feel bulletproof? Did he not learn his lesson in Macon?
Apparently not, because he got into even more trouble in New York.
"He was in denial (over gambling) again," Tracy Green said. "I think it did cease for a while, but then picked back up. There's a casino 20 miles away in Hogansburg. It escalated over the last five months."
Green was working for an auto dealership in Canton when he came under investigation for allegedly stealing nearly $17,000 and doctoring records.
The stress of it, evidently, became too much to bear.
According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, two million adults in the U.S. meet criteria for pathological gambling, while four to eight million are considered problem gamblers.
No one knew what specifically drove Green to suicide, and no one ever will.
Green never left a note that detailed what pushed him over the edge. He did leave two letters, one to Tracy and one to his three children, telling them how much he loved them.
Things haven't been easy for his family since.
"We're trying the best we can," Paul Green said. "But we're always reminded of it. Every time we see people, it's a constant reminder."
It's been even more difficult for Tracy. The couple's three kids - Kelsey, 7, Corson, 5, and Karley, 1 - aren't at an age to comprehend the situation fully.
Tracy was the one who found the body hanging in their garage.
"I believe he wanted me to find him and take care of him," she said. "He knew I'd be there.
"It's such a shock. We're so hurt. I feel so bad for the children. They're what keeps me going. When they say their prayers, they say how much they love him."
Time has yet to heal her wounds.
"I've gone through days where I'm so bitter and angry," Tracy said. "No one can explain what we've gone through, especially finding him - no what knows what that is like."
In addition to the psychological scars of Green's death, the family has also had to bear financial ones. Green didn't have enough life insurance to even fully cover his funeral, let alone provide for his family. He had been out of work for four months before his death.
But a little bit of good came out of tragedy. The town of Canton has stepped up and gone out of its way to help Tracy Green and her kids out.
"The support that has turned out, the support we've been getting, it's been great," she said. "I'm getting by (financially) and the kids will get social security. This town has come together to give me money. People came by and tore down the garage, so we wouldn't be reminded. People who don't even know me have been giving me $100. There are wonderful people living here."
Tracy Green plans to attend a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, just to try to get some insight into her husband's addiction.
Unlike drugs or alcohol, there is no physiological change that someone undergoes with gambling. With the growing availability of online betting and games like poker and blackjack getting increasing air time on television, Tracy feels its a problem that will get worse because many people don't understand the mentality of a compulsive gambler. Most people think gambling can be stopped if a person chooses to. Like other addictions, that's often not the case.
Despite his faults, Tracy hopes people remember Mark for his good points and not the past couple of years. She wants people to think of him as a man who loved his family and excelled in his sport.
"He had a heart of gold, but just couldn't get away from this problem," she said. "Hockey was his life. He had problems people couldn't understand. He was a good person."
The Green family is creating a memorial in Mark's name to help the Potsdam (N.Y.) Junior Hockey Association, the league in which two of his children participate. People interested in making donations should make checks to "Potsdam Junior Hockey Association" and send them in care of Tracy Green, 119 Park St., Potsdam, N.Y. 13676
Telegraph Staff Writer
Ex-Whoopee star Mark Green always presented a pleasant public face. But it was his inner demons that led him to a baffling and deadly decision.
Mark Green always seemed to make a good first impression, with a flair for the dramatic.
As a rookie in the East Coast Hockey League in 1991-92, he became the first Johnstown Chief ever to score 50 goals in 50 games, scoring two goals in the contest that "brought 4,040 fans to their feet, with some of those dancing in the aisles as the loud horn blared in the background," according to The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat.
In his first game with the Fayetteville Force, a more veteran Green introduced himself with a four-goal performance that sparked his new team to 10 wins in the next 12 games.
His first game in Macon with the Whoopee might have been the most memorable. With 6.9 seconds left on the clock and the Macon down 4-3, Macon center Joe Suk won the faceoff and the puck moved around to Green, who was standing near the boards between the circle and the blue line. Green fired a rocket past the goaltender for a hat trick to force a shootout and, eventually, a 5-4 Whoopee win.
"The one great memory I have of him," said former Whoopee assistant coach Dave Starman, now a broadcaster in New York. "That play was drawn up that morning. We set him up on a 6-on-5. He shot it while backing up; it went over the goalie's shoulder and hit so hard that it popped the bottle off the net. I even sent the tape of it to ESPN. I still talk about (that goal) a lot. It was one of the greatest moments in my time in Macon. There was not another goal scorer in the league who could do that."
The sense of joie de vivre he brought to the ice was with him when you met Green off it.
"Teammate-wise, he was a great guy in the locker room," said Suk, now the general manager of the Macon Trax. "Everyone seemed to like him. ... He was a smart guy, a real people person. He was always one of the older guys on our team, but he was generous; he'd hang out with the younger guys and play golf. He was a sociable guy."
In fact, really, he was just a big kid. Green loved to have fun and enjoyed hanging out with kids, especially his own. He always seemed to have a grin.
"He was warm and friendly," said Beverly Olson, who hired Green to be the general manager of Starcadia in 2001. "He loved kids; he was a kid himself. That's what attracted me to him. The park needed someone like that."
But much of the fun-loving, happy-go-lucky aspects of Green's personality was, to an extent, a facade. Despite his formidable skills, he never stayed with one franchise for very long, playing with 11 teams in nine years. Some ex-teammates described him as "selfish."
Like many athletes who have to spend long stretches on the road, Green ended up developing a vice that would prove to be his undoing. With some, it's drugs or alcohol.
With Green, it was gambling.
It grew to be such a severe problem that he would end up stealing to feed his habit. That was what forced him and his family to leave Macon, when he stole money from Starcadia.
But like most addictions, that wasn't the end. Green was under investigation for stealing from the car dealership at which he was working in Canton, N.Y. He was separated, living apart from his wife and kids. And his gambling was more desperate.
Also like most addicts, he hid his troubles well. There was no alcohol on his breath or needlemarks in his veins. And when someone saw him in public, there was always the big, toothy grin.
So when Green, 36, decided to hang himself in the family's garage on a Monday afternoon on Oct. 4, like one of his trademark wicked-hard slapshots, it was something no one saw coming.
According to the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, an average of 30,000 Americans commit suicide each year. In addition, an average of 509,000 people are treated in emergency rooms for attempted suicide. There are twice as many suicide deaths in this country than there from AIDS or HIV. More than 20 percent of suicides involving hanging/suffocation, second only to death by gunshots.
As with most suicides, no one had a clue.
Green's wife, his family, his friends, his ex-teammates, none of them had any idea that not only was he desperate enough to kill himself, but that he would ever even entertain the notion in the first place.
"I didn't see this coming; I didn't see the signs," said Green's widow, Tracy. "He waited for me to go to work. He waved and smiled like there was nothing wrong. It's so unreal."
Green's parents, Paul and Doris, also had no indication.
"I didn't," said Paul Green of Watertown, N.Y. "I wish we did. I hadn't been in close contact with him for three months. It did come as quite a shock."
People who saw Green in the days before his death said he seemed just as normal, just as cheerful as he had ever been, even with the police investigation going on at the time.
"He was here for an alumni golf outing," said Gary Mikel, the sports information director at Green's alma mater, Clarkson University. "About a month or so (earlier), he had gotten into trouble again. But he seemed fine.
"I was shocked (at Green's death). I knew he was in some trouble, but I saw him at a hockey game the Saturday before. He was smiling."
The news spread quickly through the hockey world, always a small and tight-knit community. Former teammates, coaches and fans reacted with shock. It wasn't just that Green had killed himself; it was that Mark Green, the guy with the grin and the slapshot, killed himself.
"I was stunned, distraught," Suk said. "I thought it was just a rumor. I had to go dig up some evidence to see if it was true. He always looked like a pretty strong person; I still don't believe it. I can believe he's dead, but I can't believe it would be suicide, in all honesty."
Said Starman: "I saw his picture and read the story, and I was very surprised. I was really taken aback by it. ... Being a father, I can't imagine the choice of ever seeing your family again or vice versa. The thing really hit home for me."
Depression, like gambling, can be hidden if a person wants to. Every day in the U.S., an average of 87 people kill themselves.
The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery lists three phases for gambling: the winning phase, the losing phase and the desperation phase, in which a person is described as having remorse, blaming others, alienating family and friends, and illegal acts to finance gambling. Such a person may experience hopelessness, suicide, arrests, divorce and substance abuse.
"He was the star quarterback and a great lacrosse player," Bill Gall said. "Lacrosse was probably his best sport. Hockey may have been only his second- or third-best."
Gall ought to know. He played with or against Green at every level, from high school to college to the pros.
"In high school, he beat us single-handedly," Gall said. "Everyone knew his name."
That continued in college. After being drafted in the ninth round of the NHL draft by Winnipeg, Green elected to go to college instead and lead Clarkson University to the Frozen Four as a senior in 1991.
The transition continued into the pros. Green not only set the 50-goal record as a rookie with Johnstown, but also finished with 68 goals and 47 assists in 64 games that year.
Green had many of the tools that a coach would love. He was big - 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds - with soft hands and a hard shot.
Yet Green never progressed to the more advanced levels of hockey, with the exception of a couple of cups of coffee in the IHL and AHL, the AAA level of the sport. Nor did he stay in one place very long; during his career, he never played two consecutive full seasons in the same city.
It's yet another mystery about Green where there's more speculation than fact.
"The thing with Mark was, he could score," Starman said. "I'm surprised someone didn't give him a sniff because of his great shot."
Green had the numbers to back it up. His best season came with Utica in 1994-95, in which he scored 71 goals and 56 assists in 71 games to share league MVP honors. Looking at the numbers for his career, Green was a player capable of lighting the lamp at least once a night, scoring 490 career goals.
"He was a big man, and sometimes your skating develops later in life," Starman said. "He never got to the next step. He was always conscious of it and he knew it. He used to say, 'I'd give anything to skate like John LeClair.'"
Said Suk: "I think I was surprised (that he was playing in Macon) at the time. I think he had chances (to move up) when he was younger. Things get around in the hockey community. Something kept him down; it was his skating and defensive skills.
"He was a prolific scorer, had big size, was a great passer - if I had my coaching hat on, I can say I'd indeed want him. But at the higher level, you have to play both sides of the puck."
Gall believes that there was something deeper that kept him down, that Green possessed a me-first attitude.
"Stats were important to him," Gall said. "Did wins come first? I don't know if that's the case. He was lazy on defense, and that had something to do with it."
Gall remembers a story from their time together in Utica, when he scored off a slap shot in the final game of the season. According to Gall, Green skated over to him and asked for credit on the goal so as to improve his stats. Gall let him have the credit.
"He was a great player, but a great teammate? I don't know," Gall said. "Maybe he thought he was bigger than anyone else. No one in the league could do what he could do."
The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery: "Pathological gamblers cannot overdose in the conventional sense, but they experience tremendous financial problems that require immediate attention. More resources are available to chemical dependency than gambling addiction, in part because most people do not perceive gambling as potentially addicting. It is very important that pathological gamblers receive crisis stabilization at the beginning of their treatment, because pathological gamblers have a much higher suicide rate that persons addicted to alcohol or drugs."
The rumors that Green stole things were, for many years, just that - rumors.
There had been whispers that he had stolen from both the team and his teammates in Utica, for example.
"I heard that as well," Gall said. "But I never experienced it. Every time someone talks about it, I hear of a new incident."
While some have speculated that it might have been a factor that kept Green from advancing to a higher level or sticking with the same team, he was never charged with anything during his playing career.
Once that was over, however, it became a different story.
Tracy Green knew her husband would gamble in harmless ways; after all, a pro athlete who spends half his season on the road will have his share of card games on the bus or NCAA pools.
"Obviously, when we were living in Georgia, I found out," she said. "But I didn't know how severe it was until (Starcadia) happened."
Green was working as the general manager for Starcadia, a perfect job for him. It allowed him to work and play with kids and it gave the amusement park a local sports star as a draw.
But whether it was the gambling or some form of kleptomania, Green sabotaged himself and was fired by Olson in Dec. 2001.
Green was arrested in New York in March of 2002 for misusing cash and checks from the business as well as using a company credit card to pay for repairs to his motorcycle. Green was eventually sentenced to eight years probation in August of that year and ordered to repay Olson more than $5,000.
"We treated him like a son and he stabbed us in the back," Olson said. "He did it right under our noses. He didn't need it for the money."
The situation was also the first real sign his family had he was gambling, since "what he stole wasn't for fancy cars or a big house. We had nothing to show for it," Tracy Green said.
"He never told me what his problems in (Macon) were to start with," Pau Green said. "It was something he always brushed aside."
Green not only gambled with money, but also with his freedom. After setting up an installment plan to pay back Starcadia, he stopped paying after the third month, according to Olson.
"We put pressure on the probation officer, but she said it was just a hopeless case," Olson said.
In fact, a harsher penalty might have had the effect of forcing Green onto the straight and narrow before he ran into more legal troubles. According to Olson, Green actually took tens of thousands from Starcadia, but the court was only able to make a case for $5,175.
Who could say what effect that had on him? Did Green feel bulletproof? Did he not learn his lesson in Macon?
Apparently not, because he got into even more trouble in New York.
"He was in denial (over gambling) again," Tracy Green said. "I think it did cease for a while, but then picked back up. There's a casino 20 miles away in Hogansburg. It escalated over the last five months."
Green was working for an auto dealership in Canton when he came under investigation for allegedly stealing nearly $17,000 and doctoring records.
The stress of it, evidently, became too much to bear.
According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, two million adults in the U.S. meet criteria for pathological gambling, while four to eight million are considered problem gamblers.
No one knew what specifically drove Green to suicide, and no one ever will.
Green never left a note that detailed what pushed him over the edge. He did leave two letters, one to Tracy and one to his three children, telling them how much he loved them.
Things haven't been easy for his family since.
"We're trying the best we can," Paul Green said. "But we're always reminded of it. Every time we see people, it's a constant reminder."
It's been even more difficult for Tracy. The couple's three kids - Kelsey, 7, Corson, 5, and Karley, 1 - aren't at an age to comprehend the situation fully.
Tracy was the one who found the body hanging in their garage.
"I believe he wanted me to find him and take care of him," she said. "He knew I'd be there.
"It's such a shock. We're so hurt. I feel so bad for the children. They're what keeps me going. When they say their prayers, they say how much they love him."
Time has yet to heal her wounds.
"I've gone through days where I'm so bitter and angry," Tracy said. "No one can explain what we've gone through, especially finding him - no what knows what that is like."
In addition to the psychological scars of Green's death, the family has also had to bear financial ones. Green didn't have enough life insurance to even fully cover his funeral, let alone provide for his family. He had been out of work for four months before his death.
But a little bit of good came out of tragedy. The town of Canton has stepped up and gone out of its way to help Tracy Green and her kids out.
"The support that has turned out, the support we've been getting, it's been great," she said. "I'm getting by (financially) and the kids will get social security. This town has come together to give me money. People came by and tore down the garage, so we wouldn't be reminded. People who don't even know me have been giving me $100. There are wonderful people living here."
Tracy Green plans to attend a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, just to try to get some insight into her husband's addiction.
Unlike drugs or alcohol, there is no physiological change that someone undergoes with gambling. With the growing availability of online betting and games like poker and blackjack getting increasing air time on television, Tracy feels its a problem that will get worse because many people don't understand the mentality of a compulsive gambler. Most people think gambling can be stopped if a person chooses to. Like other addictions, that's often not the case.
Despite his faults, Tracy hopes people remember Mark for his good points and not the past couple of years. She wants people to think of him as a man who loved his family and excelled in his sport.
"He had a heart of gold, but just couldn't get away from this problem," she said. "Hockey was his life. He had problems people couldn't understand. He was a good person."
The Green family is creating a memorial in Mark's name to help the Potsdam (N.Y.) Junior Hockey Association, the league in which two of his children participate. People interested in making donations should make checks to "Potsdam Junior Hockey Association" and send them in care of Tracy Green, 119 Park St., Potsdam, N.Y. 13676