Bob Pulford, a Hockey Hall of Fame player who went on to a lengthy career in the NHL as a coach and general manager, has died. He was 89.
A spokesperson for the NHL Alumni Association said Monday the organization learned of Pulford's death from his family. No other details were provided.
A tough, dependable forward, Pulford helped the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup four times during his 14-year stretch with them from 1956-70. The Newton Robinson, Ontario, native was part of the 1967 team that remains the organization's last to win a championship.
He was picked for five All-Star games and led the league in short-handed goals three times. After recording 694 points in 1,168 regular-season and playoff games, Pulford was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1991.
Off the ice, Pulford was the first president of the players union, taking part in early collective bargaining and laying the foundation for the modern NHLPA.
Pulford spent his final two playing seasons with the Los Angeles Kings in the early ‘70s before coaching them for the following five years. He then ran the Chicago Blackhawks’ front office as general manager or senior vice president of hockey operations for three decades from 1977-2007, going behind the bench to coach four times during that span.
“Whether coach, general manager, senior executive, or even multiple at the same time, Bob wasn’t afraid to serve in whatever role was most needed at the time and take on the different challenges associated with each that seem unthinkable by today’s standards,” said Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz, whose grandfather Bill employed Pulford. “We are grateful for his leadership and devotion to the sport, which will forever be part of our club’s history.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Pulford “left an indelible mark on the game,” especially given the various roles he filled.
“Bob became a friend, counselor and confidant to me — particularly in my early years as commissioner — and I had enormous respect for him and all he gave the game," Bettman said.
The NHL Alumni Association in a post memorializing Pulford called him “one of the most respected figures in the history of hockey.”
“Rest in peace, Bob,” the NHLAA said. “Your impact on hockey and on all who had the privilege of knowing you will never be forgotten.”
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FILE- Bob Pulford, general manager and coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, stands behind players, from left, Jamie Allison, Anders Eriksson and Brad Brown, Dec. 3, 1999, in Chicago, during a game against the Detroit Red Wings. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
FILE - Bob Pulford answers questions, Dec. 2, 1999 in Chicago. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell, File)
Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.
Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the “U.S. military is always an option." President Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of NATO.
“The Nordics do not lightly make statements like this,” Maria Martisiute, a defense analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “But it is Trump, whose very bombastic language bordering on direct threats and intimidation, is threatening the fact to another ally by saying ‘I will control or annex the territory.’”
The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Frederiksen in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island “belongs to its people.”
Their statement defended the sovereignty of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark and part of NATO.
The U.S. military action in Venezuela last weekend has heightened fears across Europe, and Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated a desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.
“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump told reporters Sunday.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested a meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland's government website.
Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.
Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said an American takeover would not improve upon Washington's current security strategy.
“The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk versus the Greenlandic flag,” he told the AP. “There’s no benefits to them because they already enjoy all of the advantages they want. If there’s any specific security access that they want to improve American security, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally. So this has nothing to do with improving national security for the United States.”
Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish airbases in the Scandinavian country.
Rasmussen, in a response to lawmakers’ questions, wrote over the summer that Denmark would be able to terminate the agreement if the U.S. tries to annex all or part of Greenland.
But in the event of a military action, the U.S. Department of Defense currently operates the remote Pituffik Space Base, in northwestern Greenland, and the troops there could be mobilized.
Crosbie said he believes the U.S. would not seek to hurt the local population or engage with Danish troops.
“They don’t need to bring any firepower. They don’t to bring anybody.” Crosbie said Wednesday. “They could just direct the military personnel currently there to drive to the center of Nuuk and just say, ‘This is America now,’ right? And that would lead to the same response as if they flew in 500 or 1,000 people.”
The danger in an American annexation, he said, lies in the “erosion of the rule of law globally and to the perception that there are any norms protecting anybody on the planet.”
He added: “The impact is changing the map. The impact I don’t think would be storming the parliament.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he spoke by phone Tuesday with Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland.
“In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO – a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by … any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO,” Barrot told France Inter radio on Wednesday.
Asked if he has a plan in case Trump does claim Greenland, Barrot said he would not engage in “fiction diplomacy.”
While most Republicans have supported Trump’s statement, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, have criticized Trump’s rhetoric.
“When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” their statement on Tuesday said. “Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.”
Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed to this report.
FILE - Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, Sept. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
FILE - A plane carrying Donald Trump Jr. lands in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 7, 2025. (Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, file)
FILE - United States Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller reacts on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein), File)
CORRECT THE ORDER OF SPEAKERS, FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, left, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)
