‘FATHER, MENTOR, TEACHER’
Ottawa mourns Bryan Murray
Bryan Murray never backed down from any battle he faced during his lifetime in hockey.
He took the same approach after his cancer diagnosis.
The former Ottawa Senators GM and coach, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in June 2014, put up a brave fight and refused to back down against long odds, but his battle came to an end over the weekend.
The 74-year-old native of Shawville died Saturday morning, surrounded by family and friends, the team said.
“Bryan was one of the greatest men that the game of hockey has ever known and also a great father, mentor and teacher,” said Senators owner Eugene Melnyk. “We extend our sincere condolences to his wife, Geri, daughters, Heide and Brittany, and the entire Murray family on their loss.”
Murray coached for 18 seasons and 1,239 games in the National Hockey League, and the 2016-17 season was in his 35th consecutive year working in the league.
He led the Senators to the Stanley Cup final as the club’s head coach in 2006-07, then took over the job as general manager until he handed the reins to Pierre Dorion in April 2016, leaving his indelible mark on the hockey world.
“Bryan Murray’s strength and character were reflected in the teams he coached and the teams he built over decades of front office excellence,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “While his warmth and dry sense of humour were always evident, they were accompanied by the fiery competitiveness and determination that were his trademarks.
“As we mourn Bryan’s passing, we celebrate his many contributions to the game — as well as his courage.”
Murray, the first member of the Senators installed in the Ring of Honour, received the honour on Jan. 24 before a game against the Washington Capitals, a team he had also coached. At the time, Murray was selected to the Ring of Honour, Melnyk noted he should also be “inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.”
When his cancer diagnosis became public, Murray shared his story in a bid to help save the lives of others.
He urged those who hadn’t had a colonoscopy to see their doctors because there wasn’t a cure for his cancer, but there could have been if he’d had the test.
“I didn’t have a colonoscopy, which I should have had,” Murray told TSN’s Michael Farber in a feature that aired in November 2014. “I don’t know why I didn’t. One of the comments that came back to me on a regular basis was, ‘You’re healthy, you’re from a family that hasn’t had any disease whatsoever, we can maybe wait.’
“But that’s also my fault in that I should have demanded (one) or at least asked for it, but like a lot of men do, I put it off.”
Murray then made sure he hammered home the importance of the checkup.
“A simple colonoscopy, in my case, probably would have solved the problem that I have,” he said.
Back in 1979, Murray told his wife he wanted to try coaching “for a year” when he took over the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats.
He never looked back. He was with the AHL’s Hershey Bears the next season and was hired by the NHL’s Washington Capitals in 1981, spending the rest of his career in the league.
After a remarkable nine seasons behind the Capitals’ bench, Murray made stops in Detroit and Florida, and in Anaheim as a both a GM and coach, before coming home to Ottawa in 200506. He had success because he was a special person who understood
the way to get players to rally around him.
Murray’s nephew, Tim, was the GM of the Buffalo Sabres from 2014 to 2017, and his brother, Terry, was a longtime NHL coach. “To get right to the very bottom of Bryan, you have to go back to his roots,” Nashville Predators GM David Poile, a close friend who first met Murray in Washington in 1980, told Postmedia in March 2015.
“Bryan, by education, is and was a teacher. He knows the X’s and O’s of the game of hockey really well, and I don’t think there’s anyone who will dispute that. But, first and foremost, he’s a teacher. As a teacher, he really knows his players. He knows how to communicate with them. He knows how to push their buttons and he’s got a great way, a unique way, about him.
“Some that don’t know him would say he’s a little sarcastic from time to time. The way he talks to them, he gets to them and he gets them to understand what it takes to play. He gets them motivated. As a teacher, he just loves to be influential on players’ careers, and he is and has been for his coaching and managing career.”
Despite the cancer diagnosis, Murray remained on the job for two more years while undergoing regular chemotherapy treatments. He moved into the role as senior adviser in the spring.
“Some of his meetings he was pretty sarcastic with certain things,” winger Chris Neil said in January. “We were in a meeting and he showed video of (Jason Spezza) turning the puck over, and he’d be like, ‘This is what not to do,’ and the whole room would be laughing. He got his point
across and that’s the way he got guys to respond.
“He’s one of those coaches that always had everybody in his lineup going for him, and that’s tough to do.”
Murray loved being at the rink every day and especially being around the players. He said in January he was fortunate to be able to close out his days in the NHL with the Senators.
“To finish my career in Ottawa and to receive this (Ring of Honour) recognition, is certainly another highlight,” said Murray, who listed his trip to the Cup final with the Senators and the reaction of the city among his most memorable moments.
In 2014 Farber interview, Murray noted he wasn’t a fan of the tiebreaking shootouts, and that the best approach he could take with the disease was to fight as hard as he could for as long as he could.
“That’s all you can do, and I hate shootouts,” Murray said. “Let’s go to extra overtime and keep playing like the game that we played (against the Islanders, while with Washington) many years ago, and it went to four overtime periods.
“Let’s keep it going as long as we can and be as healthy as we can for that time and enjoy what we have as we do it.”
Not only will Murray be terribly missed by his wife, Geri, along with their daughters, Heide and Brittany, and the couple’s grandchildren, there will be a deep hole in the lives of all the people in the hockey world he touched.
As a teacher, he just loves to be influential on players’ careers and he is and has been for his coaching and managing career.