The One and Only Bearcat

 

His Highness Prince Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi II, heir to the throne of the Principality of Monaco and only son of Hollywood royalty Grace Kelly, in town to train at the Olympic bobsleigh track at Canada Olympic Park, waited patiently to be introduced to the local celebrity.

 
 
 
 
The One and Only Bearcat
 

His Highness Prince Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi II, heir to the throne of the Principality of Monaco and only son of Hollywood royalty Grace Kelly, in town to train at the Olympic bobsleigh track at Canada Olympic Park, waited patiently to be introduced to the local celebrity.

The local celebrity, the short, balding man with the thick bushy moustache and twinkling eyes, was busy shaking lots of hands.

He didn't quite catch the name.

Something, obviously, got lost in translation.

"How ya doin'? Bearcat Murray,'' he blurted, extending his hand to an astonished prince. "I've got friends in Prince Albert. Colder 'n hell up there!"

Jim (Bearcat) Murray, one of hockey's imperishable personalities, the one and only Potlicker ("a Dirty '30s expression, for kids who'd lick the bottom of bowls in the kitchen"), is this year's selection by the Professional Hockey Athletic Trainers Society (PHATS) and Society of Professional Hockey Equipment Managers (SPHEM) to go into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"Shoot, there's a whole lot of people who aren't in there that should be, ahead of me,'' he protests.

Ah, but we beg to disagree.

Self-taught as a trainer and jack-of-all-trades in the hockey business, young Jim Murray inherited the nickname Bearcat from his dad, a pretty fair player in his own right.

Bearcat sharpened his first skate at age 12. Rode as a jockey on the bush-league thoroughbred circuit. Wildcatted in the oil fields and as a trainer for the junior Centennials and Wranglers, the WHA Calgary Cowboys and the CFL Stampeders.

In 15 years tending bruises and injuries for the Calgary Flames, he transformed himself without any conscious effort into an authentic legend in this city, an instantly recognizeable figure around the entire NHL ready with a smile or handy with a yarn. One of those old-time characters who instantly makes people feel good, feel comfortable, feel somehow a part of it all.

"When you think of where he came from,'' marvels former goaltender Mike Vernon, who's known the Bear the better part of his life, "to where he is, it's just . . . well, it's just amazing.''

Part of Bearcat's effortless folksy charm is that he treats everyone -- from Wayne Gretzky to the gent manning security at the back door of the Saddledome -- exactly the same: Like a long-lost friend.

Why, he even wasn't above coming to the aid of a lowly media gnome suffering from excruciating back spasms at 1:30 one morning in a hotel room on the road. Making the man something of a saint.

"Hockey today,'' says former Flame Perry Berezan, "is cold. It's a cold-hearted business. Bearcat is from a different era.

"He didn't just look after us. He was there as a sounding board, a psychiatrist and a cheerleader. If you'll remember, I spent a lot of my brief, undistinguished Flames' career in the training room. So I know.

"Here was someone who didn't have certificates or diplomas. But he knew. He was always reading, studying, making himself better at his job. You felt safe with him. He was a friend. Just a great, great guy.

"Anyone who went through the Flames' dressing room during his time there owes him a debt of gratitude.''

The list of Bearcat stories is endless. They've been told, re-told and even embellished. But that is part of the man's magic.

Perhaps the most memorable yarn comes from the night during a playoff game at the 'Dome against L.A. in the spring of '89 that he jumped on the ice to tend to Vernon, lying flat on his back. The play was not whistled down despite Bear's conspicuous presence, the Flames scored a goal on the rush and all hell done broke loose.

"Bernie Nicholls punched me,'' explains Vernon nearly two decades later. "So I dropped, looking to draw a penalty. I'm lying there wondering when might be a good time to sit up, and all of a sudden there's Bearcat kneeling overtop of me. 'Vernie, Vernie, are you hurt?' I told him: 'No, Bear, I'm fine.' And he looked worried, more worried then I'd ever seen him. Scared, almost. 'No, no, Vernie, are you hurt?!'

"We'd just scored a goal with him on the ice and Gretzky was going ballistic. I think Bear thought I'd better be hurt or he might lose his job.''

Vernon wasn't. He didn't. And it only added another memorable tale to the catalogue.

The other famous incident occurred the night in Edmonton he ventured up into the stands at Northlands Coliseum to protect his son, Al.

Defenceman Gary Suter's stick had been knocked into the stands during the first period at Northlands on a hit, and was scooped up by Oiler fans and hidden under their seats. Al, an assistant trainer (nickname, naturally: AlleyCat), hopped the glass in search of the stick. Things threatened to get ugly, so Papa Bear jumped into the fray.

"A father's instinct,'' he says now.

Going from the bench into the crowd, Bearcat ripped ligaments in his right ankle on the stone steps.

"They kept the TV camera on me, as I was being wheeled into the ambulance. This was while the game was still going on. So I blew a few kisses.''

The trooper returned to his post, ankle in a cast, for the second period.

"We had TWO trainers in the stands,'' laughs Berezan. "Now there's something you don't see every day.''

For leaping into the pit of the enemy lair to save his son, a group of impressed hockey fans in Boston, who'd watched the shenanigans on TV, immediately formed the Bearcat Murray Fan Club. They printed club stationery and would arrive at Bruins-Flames games at the old Garden in skull caps and Groucho Marx-style moustaches to salute their hero (after, it must be added, imbibing generously at The Penalty Box bar across the street and under the causeway from the Garden).

A second chapter of the club surfaced briefly in Montreal.

"My dad, a big fan of Bearcat's, heard about the fan club,'' says left winger Colin Patterson. "You think maybe he'd want a Calgary Flames jersey with his son's No. 11 on it? Nooooo. He wanted me to get him a Bearcat Murray Fan Club sweatshirt.

"I did, too. And he wore it.

"In fact, he loved it.''

FAN 960 colour man and former NHLer Mike Rogers remembers the Cat driving the Calgary Centennials team bus. In those days, Bear doubled as trainer and chauffeur.

"Scotty Munro was too cheap to get us a new bus. This was an old bus. On this bus, nothing worked. Certainly not the front window defrost. So there would be Bearcat, during snowstorms, scraping ice off the window with a credit card, his head out the side window and manning the wheel with his right hand.''

Perhaps Bearcat's greatest trait is his ability to connect with anyone. There's an openness, a glad-to-see-you familiarity that cuts through any awkwardness. He's old-school, in the best sense of the term.

"I remember during the depression, these guys -- doctors and lawyers and businessmen -- would ride the rails,'' he says. "They had lost all their money. They had nothing. And my dad, who had a good job with the Alberta Wheat Board, would see them and invite them over so my mom could cook for them.

"And I'd sit out on the front step with them while they ate and talk to them about, oh, about everything. Their lives, their hopes, their dreams. They were interesting, funny, sad.

"I guess that's where I got my love of people.

"My favourite expression is, 'But why?' I got it from Michael Nylander. When Michael was here, whenever somebody'd ask him to do something, he'd always say, 'But why?' It just cracked me up, but I got to thinking, if you never ask questions, you'll never get answers and you'll never understand.

"When Washington was in the other day, he saw me after the morning skate, came over and gave me a big hug, all sweated up from the skate. And I looked at him and said: 'Michael, but why?' ''

One of the finest professional tributes Bearcat can remember came from then-Flames' psychologist Hap Day, during just another day down at the rink.

"I honestly thought Hap was sleeping. Just sitting there in the room. I'm giving Gary Roberts a massage and I'm talkin' to him, like I always talked, telling him how great he was, how he was going to be able to beat this defenceman and how he'd score on the goalie. Getting him ready. Pumping him up. Making him feel good. Just like always. Well, this went on a half-hour or so.

"After awhile, Hap got up to leave and I said, 'Geez, Hap I thought you'd been sleeping!'

"And he said: 'No, Bear. I haven't been sleeping. I've been going to school. I've learned more in the last half hour than I did in 10 years at school!' "

Jim Peplinski's favourite Bearcat story is the day he gallantly came to the aid of German sex goddess/figure skater Katarina Witt, practising down at the 'Dome.

"According to Bear, she fell and injured her knee. She gets into the room, pulls down her leotard and asks him 'What's wrong?' He told us later: 'Nothing was wrong!' "

(Patterson remembers the specifics differently. In his version, Bear was caught staring and quickly reminded: "Bear, it's her knee that's hurt.' ").

But that is, in part, the beauty of the Bearcat. The stories only get better.

Rogers recalls that Centennials' coach Scotty Munro absolutely forbade his players to use curved sticks.

"A few of us -- myself, Danny Gare, Jerry Holland -- said screw that. So we'd meet in the men's washroom at the Corral, turn on the hot water -- it'd take, oh, an hour and a half to really heat up -- and use it to curve our sticks. Scotty got wind of this and sent Bearcat to investigate.''

One day, as the boys tinkered with their cues, Holland, posted as the lookout, saw Bearcat approaching the washroom from down the hall. Alerted, Rogers and Gare rushed into one of the cubicles, shut the door and hopped up on the toilet seat to avoid detection.

"We figured Bear would just poke his head in the door, see nothing, and leave,'' laughs Rogers. "We heard the door open, they heard some scraping sounds. We're holding our breath, trying not to make a sound . . .

"And then, all of a sudden, this little bald head sticks out from underneath the door -- Danny and I are still standing on the toilet -- and says 'Gotcha!'

"He never turned us in. But he caught us just the same.''

"Bearcat was my first trainer in junior in Calgary,'' recalls Calgary Hitmen GM Kelly Kisio. "If your gear wasn't hung properly in your stall, by that I mean if it was lying on the floor, it'd still be there in the morning and by the time you arrived, it'd be in the shower.

"The dressing room was his domain. He ran it his way. And if you didn't like it, well, you could just go play somewhere else.''

The PHATS/SPHEM induction ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Annual Hall of Fame Dinner in late June in Phoenix, reserving a spot for the Bearcat, now 75 years young, at the Hall in Toronto. Everyone in this town knows it's long overdue.

"I can't imagine he'll stop here,'' says Peplinski with genuine affection. "I'd think this is just the first of many Halls of Fame he'll be inducted into.

"There's the Trainers Hall of Fame.

"The Jockey Hall of Fame.

"The Bus Driving Hall of Fame.

"The Psychologists Hall of Fame.

"The Comedians Hall of Fame

"The Potlickers Hall of Fame.

"He deserves to be in them all. He's one-of-a-kind. A wonderful man, God love him.''

gjohnson@theherald.canwest.com

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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