Forbes Kennedy’s NHL farewell was a real doozy

Sport admin June 8, 2026 0 Comments

Forbes Kennedy’s NHL farewell was a real doozy

This story originally appeared in the Globe’s Sunday Hockey Notes. Read the rest here.

Former Bruins winger Forbes Kennedy, who forever will be remembered here for his wild night at the Garden as a member of the Maple Leafs in the 1969 playoffs, died May 25 in his beloved Prince Edward Island. “Forbie,” as he was known by teammates, friends, and the legion of NHL hopefuls he coached around PEI for decades after his playing career, was 90.

That crazy game on April 2, 1969, proved to be the fiery Kennedy’s final one in the NHL — and his exit was a doozy.

His Maple Leafs drubbed and humiliated in a 10-0 pounding in Game 1 of the quarterfinals, an incensed Kennedy took on both Bruins goalie Gerry Cheevers and Johnny “Pie” McKenzie in a protracted battle royale. The mayhem lasted some 30 minutes at the Bruins’ end of the ice with 3:46 to go in the third period.

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The melee broke out near the Boston net and continued over to the sidewall, to the left of where Cheevers worked, at which point a fan reached over the short stretch of protective glass atop the boards and punched Kennedy on top of the head. No night for favored alums on Causeway Street.

“He was a tough little guy,” said Cheevers, reached by phone the other day at his Florida home. “Everybody loved Forbie.”

What truly set the episode apart, even by the day’s standards of the NHL Wild West, was that Kennedy one-punched linesman George Ashley to the ice. Be it intentional or not — and nearly a half-century later Cheevers believes it was not — it was the punch to Ashley’s kisser that led league president Clarence Campbell to suspend Kennedy for four games.

Toronto traded Kennedy to the Penguins for cash in the offseason and he was soon claimed by the Rangers in the since-scrapped intraleague draft, but he never played again in the league. Various reports over the years had it that he chose not to meet with Campbell for what was a necessary step toward being reinstated.

It turned out to be his lone playoff game that season, only the 12th of his long career, and he was finished as an NHLer at age 33.

Cheevers, in what he recalls as a moment of “arrogance,” sparked the brouhaha by slashing Kennedy some four minutes after Ken Hodge’s goal provided the 10-0 lead. If not for that slash, the brouhaha likely never would have erupted, noted Cheevers, which is why in part he said he “went to bat” for Kennedy in hopes that Campbell would not suspend him.

“I said I started the whole thing, that he shouldn’t be suspended,” recalled Cheevers, now 85, who went on to back the Bruins to their Stanley Cup wins in 1970 and ‘72. “I said he was really just protecting himself. I don’t know … I came up with some cockamamie story, that I started it and it was unfair for him to get penalized because of me.”

Cheevers took on Kennedy, he said, because Bruins defenseman “Terrible” Ted Green, perfectly capable of taking on all customers, was playing with a fractured wrist and couldn’t fight.

The netminder ultimately had two bouts with Kennedy, before and after Ashley was felled. Just as it looked like he was ready to leave the ice, Kennedy grabbed at McKenzie, who promptly gave his ex-teammate a beatdown. Kennedy’s face was a bloody mess when he finally headed to the locker room.

For his wayward ways, Kennedy was assessed 32 penalty minutes, including two minutes for slashing Cheevers, five minutes for each of the fights, a 10-minute misconduct, and a 10-minute game misconduct.

“How can I say it …?,” said Cheevers, reflecting on Kennedy’s contact with Ashley. “I don’t think there was any intent, any desire to [hit him]. I don’t think he was that way.”

A scrappy, tenacious, 5-foot-8-inch/150-pound winger — when scrappy and tenacious was the only way a 5-8/150 winger survived in those NHL days — Kennedy spent four seasons with the Bruins (1962-63 to ’65-66), in the era when the team lived on the dark side of the moon. His final days came in the seventh season in a row the Bruins missed the postseason.

Bobby Orr arrived in the autumn of ‘66, but Kennedy spent that season with the WHL California Seals and then was claimed by the Flyers in the 1967 expansion draft that doubled the size of the Original Six NHL.

Cheevers said he saw Kennedy ”at least 100 times” in the years after the two tangled. Over the ensuing decades, he played two or three times in the annual golf tournament Kennedy staged for countless summers in PEI, where he coached aspiring NHLers and also owned a bar.

“He was the king up there,” said an admiring Cheevers. “Fabulous guy, good sense of humor, perfect guy to sit with and talk, have a beer with, and smoke a cigar.”

Earlier the night of April 2, 1969, Maple Leafs defenseman Pat Quinn lined up Orr in the Boston end, Orr briefly gazing down at the puck as he began to wheel it up the right side for one of his trademark rushes. Quinn pinched down from the blue line and knocked Orr to Palookaville, sending the young phenom to MGH. Security personnel had to protect Quinn from irate fans as he sat in the penalty box.

The next night, for Game 2, a stuffed dummy in Quinn’s image, noose around its neck, hung from the Garden’s second balcony. The charged emotions around Quinn’s hit — Orr’s teammates yet to know that he was conscious and OK — undoubtedly were at play when the tempestuous Kennedy went off.

Historian Dave Stubbs, in his nhl.com remembrance piece of Kennedy, recalled what the little big man had to say upon being inducted in the Prince Edward Island Hall of Fame. Had he been dispatched to play in Timbuktu, Kennedy said, he would have arrived ready to go, hockey stick in hand.

“I believe to play hockey, you’ve got to love the game,” said Kennedy. “If you don’t, it’s a job. When we played hockey, it wasn’t a job, not for one guy in the league.”