Not your typical hockey mom
Mother of Senators’ general manager was dedicated fan who turned to baking when other team scored
As the matriarch of one of hockey’s most successful families, Rhoda Murray turned to baking when times got tough on the ice. “If the other team scored, she’d just go to the kitchen and make cookies or something so she didn’t have to look at it,” said her daughter, Darlene, the eldest of five girls born to Murray and her husband, Clarence.
Murray baked nearly every day, said her second daughter, Lorraine. Treats like homemade pies, cookies and twisters — a deepfried bun twisted and dipped in cinnamon made especially for Christmas morning breakfast — kept the sweet tooth of Murray’s 10 children, 26 grandchildren and 32 greatgrandchildren satisfied.
“She always made tons of cookies. It didn’t matter how many people went to the house, you could always have a fresh cookie. Her freezer, matter of fact, I looked in it, and she must have about six cans of homemade cookies and tea biscuits and muffins,” Lorraine said.
Murray, mother of Ottawa Senators’ general manager Bryan Murray and grandmother of assistant general manager Tim Murray, died in Shawville on Sept. 8 after suffering a stroke in mid-August. She was 93.
As the eldest of eight children, Murray learned to take care of a large family from a young age, skidding logs and milking cows with her father in her hometown of Aldfield, Que. When the family moved to Ladysmith, Murray walked six miles to and from school. She moved out of her childhood home in her mid-teens, going about 20 kilometres up the road to Shawville to cook and clean for a local doctor’s family.
It was in Shawville that Murray met Clarence, to whom she would be married for 65 years. He died in 2005 at the age of 96. For their first date they attended Murray’s first hockey game, a sport that would lead to success for sons Bryan and Terry, former head coach of the L.A. Kings who is now at the helm of the American Hockey League’s Adirondack Phantoms.
Despite having two famous sons, Lorraine said her mother, who lived in the family home in Shawville until she died, made everyone feel special.
“She had no favourites. Lots of people talked about the two boys, and she said, ‘You know what, I have 10 kids and I’m proud of every one of them.’ She always said that; she never made exceptions.”
She was proud of her boys, said eldest daughter Darlene, but would never brag about their success. As a mother of 10 who cooked in a local school cafeteria and cleaned banks to ensure her children always had clean clothes and food on the table, Murray didn’t have time to be a typical hockey mom.
“She didn’t drive her kids to the rink; she never drove. She didn’t have time for that stuff,” said Darlene.
With five boys in the house, she learned to love hockey, said Darlene. She stopped attending Ottawa Senators games because she found it too tiring, but she remained a religious fan. Some of the 200 guests at her funeral on Sept. 12 included Senators players Jason Spezza, Chris Phillips and Chris Neil, as well as coach Paul MacLean and director of player personnel Paul Dorion. Almost every National Hockey League team sent flowers.
At the funeral, officiated at Murray’s request by former Shawville United Church reverend Paula Mullin, local Celtic musician and soloist Jack McGuire, hired to perform a traditional Irish blessing, added his own tribute to Murray, said Darlene.
“For the last song, he sang Good Ol’ Hockey Game, and Spezza scored. It couldn’t have been more appropriate. Mom would have loved that. She did love the hockey.”