Finding Murph: The sad story of Joe Murphy

[CharasLazyWrister]

Gotta be 100% honest here....

Even knowing what I know now about CTE, if I was given the chance to have a mediocre 6-8 year NHL career (say P.J. Axelsson’s career).

I’d do it.

Both for the $$$ and the prestige.

You bite your tongue.

PJ Axelsson was 11 years of absolute legend.

 

[sarge88]

You bite your tongue.

PJ Axelsson was 11 years of absolute legend.

Can’t tell if you’re joking or not and I loved P.J. and appreciated him, but if his career was anything above mediocre, I have no idea what to call the careers of the hundreds of players that were better than him, but not at the star or superstar level.

 

[GloveSave1]

What a repugnant attitude.

Really got the feeling if he was dying in a bed of cancer after working for a company that had him breathing in asbestos for 20 years, he’d say “I’m just fortunate they gave me the honor of hard work and a paycheck.”

“I can go to my grave happy knowing that my death made other people really rich. I’m a man’s man.”

Barf.

Stop being chattel. That’s not being a tough guy, that’s getting used.

 

[HockeyMomx2]

A good friend of mine passed away last year and he wanted his brain donated to BU. He had played high school and college football and as he got older he had mood swings that his friends got used to saying that;s just Bruce being Bruce.

Turns out he indeed had CTE.

More than 100 years ago college football was almost abolished because of violence and head injuries. Teddy Roosevelt chaired a committee that recommended widening the field but that was ruled out because of Harvard Stadium which was the first concrete stadium in the world and could not be changed.

So instead the committee made the forward pass legal.

How Harvard Stadium's concrete design changed the rules of football

Eighteen players died in 1905, leading to calls from Harvard President Charles W. Eliot to reform the game or abolish the team, and inspiring then-President Teddy Roosevelt to call a conference to reform the game. A series of innovations and new rules were floated to make the game less injury-prone, including widening the field 40 yards.

Since Harvard's field was hemmed in by a concrete horseshoe, the team proposed instituting the forward pass instead. Other teams of the day, fearful of losing the Harvard program to the rule change and anti-violence crusaders, hastily adopted the pass and other changes, in the name of making the game safer.

Personally, I think the NHL needs to go to the Olympic standard of 200 x 100 to create some more room. Bobby Orr wants to see the red line restored to slow the game down. At some point down the road, both the NHL and NFL are going to get nailed by a jury over injuries and Bettman knows it.

Something has to change.

I’m on board with restoring red line. Always have been.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Really got the feeling if he was dying in a bed of cancer after working for a company that had him breathing in asbestos for 20 years, he’d say “I’m just fortunate they gave me the honor of hard work and a paycheck.”

“I can go to my grave happy knowing that my death made other people really rich. I’m a man’s man.”

Barf.

Stop being chattel. That’s not being a tough guy, that’s getting used.

it feels heartless to argue this side of the argument... but suppose your family is starving and someone in one of these countries comes to you and says you can have a job in my military. if you take the job you will get a chance to go shoot the other people and maybe pillage their belongings and enrich yourself. we intend to end up in control of this area and when we do you should be able to provide for your loved ones

now... they don't tell you that you may get shot or blown up or exposed to gas/chemical war fare... but isn't there a little bit of responsibility on your part to evaluate these sort of risks?

im sorry... but there are many many many many many dangerous jobs out there and people have to evaluate the risks when they decide to take these jobs. most these dangerous jobs pay a bit more because of their danger

when I worked for 7-11 they paid the midnight shift a dollar extra per hour because of the increased exposure to drunks and possible criminal element. that dollar extra wasn't a million dollar nhl salary, but for a 19 year old kid like I was it was valuable money. I said, put me on midnight shift. I didn't give a damn about the potential extra danger.

none of us actually need to go to our grave happy about our jobs. does the office worker go to their grave happy knowing they were locked in a cubicle selling insurance or stock advice and making other people really rich or whatever... or were they just happy they could afford a mortgage for 40 years and put food on the table for their family? at the grave... most of us probably wont be too satisfied with our jobs.

you rarely get a job that you plan on thinking about at your deaths door. hopefully you got better things to think about at deaths door. you would normally think about your job when you get your paychecks. that's the moment where its important to feel like the paycheck is worth whatever crap you had to go through that month.

if someone were to pay me 1.6 million to let mike Tyson punch me in the face for 3 and 1/2 mins... I would take the money

if someone offered me 2 million dollars to go live in a jail for a year... I would take the money

if I was offered 600k a year for the next 10 years to go play hockey... I would take the money

for me its a total no brainer even if I got 3-4 concusions along the way and ended up with no brain. to get that type of money and set my family up {and maybe several generations to come} I would take the money and assume the risks.

hell if someone offered me a million dollars for a kidney... I probably wouldn't do it because im very squeamish about that sort of thing... but I bet there are people here reading this forum who might.

sometimes the money is worth the health damage we might do to ourselves or whatever other dangers would be associated with a job and nhl players happen to get more money than 99% of the other jobs out there so suck it up. if there was proof that the 'greedy owners' were intentionally benefitting by making it more likely the players got concusions then by all means launch criminal preceedings. but this is just a case where NO ONE knew exactly what was happening as the players got bigger and faster and the play got more exciting.

fans today are delighted the game is more exciting then ever before... and the players are making average 2 mill a year because of the fan interest being at an all time high. but that comes at a cost. ask the players if they are willing to go back to an average salary of less than 100k if the rules and equipment goes back to the 1960s. if the popularity of the league loses their national tv contracts. if the popularity suffers so that it would be difficult to find more than 6 or 12 markets that would support a team...

im sorry... but the appeal of the game is the speed and violence. most casual sports fans in the world don't even know what the rules are about crossing lines with procession or shooting the puck over the glass. what attracts these people to a game is the sheer violent spectacle of these 200 pound athletes smacking into each other at 35 miles per hour and occasionally getting into a fight

 

[JOKER 192]

when my 2 boys where very young I told them that if there was anything that caught their interest in life , whatever it may be, that I would be glad to help them out with it. If it required lessons or training or educating, I would support them. Of course , I was thinking things like music,arts, sports etc. My oldest son came to me when he was about 8 years old and told me he wanted to be a MMA fighter. Though I really hated to have to go back on my word there was no way I could support my son in this. There was no way I was going to encourage my son to get punched in the head. Especially not in MMA. Though I am a fan, there is no way my son was going in that direction with my blessing. My son is twenty now and still brings it up on occasion, how I held him back from what could have been. Somehow I feel no shame.

Far be it from me to defend Millionaires the likes of those that own hockey teams. I do believe there will be day when the NHL will have to pay out. However, I knew nothing about CTE and still know very little but it doesn't take a genius to know that getting hit in the head can't be good for you.

If the players and more importantly the NHLPA didn't know the dangers why do suspect that management did?

My biggest issue is with the NHLPA. Where were they ? Is it not their job to defend the interest of the players? If the owners refused to acknowledge or learn the dangers, why didn't they point them out or educate them on the subject. Having gone through work stoppages , it would seem to me that this should have been a non-negotiable point. The very least they should have done was oblige the NHL , or take it upon themselves, to commission an extensive study and raise awareness to the dangers.

As another poster pointed out, Bobby Orr has spoken out about putting the red line back in the game. When Bobby Orr talks only fools laugh. Frankly I was against taking it out in the 1st place. The speed players are generating without the red line is insane and it's getting faster every year. Every team is building teams based on speed as one of the most important aspects of a players skill set. The dangers of yesterdays bare knuckle fights has been replaced by the dangers of high speed collisions both accidental or intentional.

At some point while team management will have to take some of the blame so will the players.

 

[ODAAT]

Sad indeed, this was aired as we were driving across country and I won`t lie, as we drove through Kenora, I was looking for him as was my bride having watched it with me. I`m intimately familiar with addiction, this stuff always hits home with me.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Can’t tell if you’re joking or not and I loved P.J. and appreciated him, but if his career was anything above mediocre, I have no idea what to call the careers of the hundreds of players that were better than him, but not at the star or superstar level.

I was joking.

 

[rocketdan9]

Not sure if people in the US can find this story on TSN, but they aired a documentary of former # 1 overall pick in 1986 Joe Murphy, who briefly played for the Bruins. Such a sad story of how injuries, drugs and bad choices led Murphy spiraling downward . Now 50 years old this former NHL player and top draft pick is now homeless and living on the streets of Kenora Ontario and may have some mental health issues. Another former player Trevor Kidd visited him and brings food and clothing and has offered to help as has several other players. So hard to imagine how a person can fall so far. Hoping he gets the help he needs.

Wouldnt he still be receiving a pension from the nhl?

Kevin Stevens story was also a tragic one. But seems to have pulled together

 

[Fenway]

Update and it is depressing

Westhead: Murphy's life unravelled after Edmonton

TSN senior investigative reporter Rick Westhead joined the show to talk about his new book Finding Murph, the story of how former NHLer Joe Murphy went from a Stanley Cup champion to living homeless in Kenora, Ontario and how the NHL continues to fail when it comes to brain injuries, pain tolerance and substance abuse problems.

 

[Fenway]

 

[BMC]

You bite your tongue.

PJ Axelsson was 11 years of absolute legend.

Damn straight.

 

[sarge88]

Update and it is depressing

Westhead: Murphy's life unravelled after Edmonton

TSN senior investigative reporter Rick Westhead joined the show to talk about his new book Finding Murph, the story of how former NHLer Joe Murphy went from a Stanley Cup champion to living homeless in Kenora, Ontario and how the NHL continues to fail when it comes to brain injuries, pain tolerance and substance abuse problems.

So sad.

It's so difficult to support adults with mental health/substance issues (which tend to go hand in hand) because the individual needs to be at point in their life where they want to get help. Problem is that falling off the wagon is so common that it makes healing so much more difficult.