Bryan Murray: Ties to the Washington Capitals Still Bind

Now he watches the Washington Capitals on television. His wife goes to a Capital game and he stays home. He’s taken up light jogging. He works on his car. He’s thinking about painting his house. “I’ve got plenty of time,” said Bryan Murray, sipping morning coffee in his living room.

He’d rather be behind the bench where, of all people, his brother Terry now stands--a switch that surprised both brothers and confounded the large Murray family and their friends in Shawville, Quebec, becoming the chief topic of conversation in the little hockey hub.

Meanwhile, in Gambrills, Md., Bryan Murray wrestles with life on hold; between phone calls from well-wishers, he misses the pressures, the joys, the action of coaching the Capitals. He’d welcome it all--even if the pressures were greater than most had known.

“I don’t have a two-year contract,” Murray revealed, putting down his coffee. He said he only had a one-year deal.

To ensure a second season of coaching, he added, the Capitals would have had to advance beyond their division in this year’s playoffs--something they have never done. His mission had been clear and ominous: Make the playoffs and win at least the first round. Or else.

“I think if we lost in the first round, it was probably a foregone conclusion,” he said.

“If we won the first round and went into the second round and played well and got beaten, then there would be a time period where we would talk about what was going on. It wasn’t automatic that I was going to be out of here. But it wasn’t automatic that I’d roll into another year of my contract.”

The second year was automatic only under one condition--”if we got by the first couple of rounds.”

Murray said his contract had been worked out with David Poile, the Capitals’ general manager, who this week confirmed the coach’s account. Poile also confirmed Murray’s explanation that a two-year coaching contract had been announced by the team so as not to put added pressure on the players, or, as Murray put it, “so the players wouldn’t be under the impression I was at the whim of them playing well or not playing well.”

“That is something we mutually agreed would be in his best interest,” said Poile.

“When I signed the contract,” said Murray, “it was very up front. ‘Look, Bryan, it’s going to be: If you win in the playoffs, great, you’ll be here. If you don’t win in the playoffs, in all likelihood we’ll make a change.’ ”

As a result, Murray set a course that he believed could lead the Capitals to unprecedented success--as well as save the job he was fired from last week.

“My whole planning,” said Murray, “was for the playoffs. Adjustments were made for the playoffs knowing full well that when you go that route you’re sacrificing a little bit during the regular schedule.”

Poile and Murray went to a much younger team this season. The shift, Murray believed, would pay off in April--and the elusive May that has always found the Capitals golfing.

“This is what’s frustrating to me, I guess,” said Murray. “We made quite a number of changes. We gave up veterans like Bobby Gould and Lou Franceschetti and Peter Sundstrom. Bengt Gustafsson went back to Europe. We went with Rob Murray, Yvon Corriveau, Steve Leach, Alan May, Billy Houlder--the idea being that they would grow from day one of the schedule to playoff time.

“In a couple cases, these are very different type players than we have had, more able to withstand the grinding of playoff hockey. So the adjustment was made on purpose, to have a different type of team come playoff time.

“The unfortunate part of it for us was that (Rod) Langway, (Scott) Stevens and (Neil) Sheehy got hurt. As much as anything, they were the leadership on the team, the stability in the room that we lost when we gave up Louie and a Bobby Gould. Because you’re not going to get a rookie to step up when you have a couple of injuries to your veteran guys, to be the mainstays, the guiding forces that Rod and Scott were.

“So when we started to fall a little bit, we had a tougher time getting to the emotional level, getting the confidence level back to where it should be. It’s not their playing necesssarily that you miss; it’s their leadership, what they do for the team in the room.”

Of course, over the years, there was the never-ending need for a goaltender. Almost always, in Murray’s tenure, the Capitals bowed in the playoffs to a “hot” goaltender. And even now, Murray believes the Capitals still need another goaltender--one who can carry them a distance in the playoffs.

“I think Don Beaupre has been fine,” said Murray. “I was really very happy with him. Beaupre can play a role on the team. Bob Mason to me never really came back to the level he was at when he left here.

“I think--and we’ve talked about it for a long time in the organization--for the Capitals to be real successful this year I think they have to add one more goaltender. It’s got to be a good goaltender with the ability to win a game.

“I think we’ve come up short in that category. To be successsful in our league today, you have to have a top-notch guy in that net.

“You look at the goaltenders who played for the Capitals since I’ve been here--Dave Parro, Pat Riggin, Al Jensen, Pete Peeters--none of them has stayed in the National League or been successful in the National League after they left the Capitals. Peeters is the only one who stayed any time at all this year, in Philadelphia, and he can’t win a game, it looks like.”

Clint Malarchuk?

“Clint was a great regular-season goaltender, but we didn’t think he was the answer,” said Murray.

“I agree with Bryan,” Poile said, “we haven’t had in our franchise history the goaltender that made the difference.”

Murray, 47, Capitals coach since 1981 and eighth in winning percentage in the history of NHL coaches, said he hasn’t been approached by another team. He wouldn’t be surprised if nothing happens for the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, he has his memories: Coming here and helping to turn around the franchise quickly; the Capitals making the playoffs the first time; a 107-point season; a Patrick Division title; playoff wins, excruciating playoff losses. He believes the “constant commentary” in the media that the playoffs are the “only” thing that count “adds tremendous pressure to management.”

But Murray is neither looking back nor resting on accomplishments. For the time being, he roots hard for the Capitals. When he can’t get the game on television, he turns on radio. He finds that he has to know the score. “I still feel it’s part my team,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been here so long and I take such pride in the way some of the players have improved, and the way they played for me. So I hope Terry lets me share a little bit of that for at least the balance of this year.”

But if the Capitals are paying Bryan Murray off for the season--a reported $175,000 annual salary--he’d trade his forced inactivity to work behind some NHL team’s bench. Hockey always has been his love and the pro game his life since he landed the coaching job with the Hershey Bears in 1980.

Ever since he left his hometown of Shawville to coach Regina in the Western Hockey League and ever since the younger Terry left home as a teen-ager to play junior hockey in Ottawa, the two brothers have been followed intently from a distance by the Murray family.

Two of 10 children, they are the special pride of a town that for years has applauded their every success. Nowhere was the news of the Capitals’ coaching change received with such deeply felt shock and mixed emotions as in snow-covered Shawville.

It was a long road from Shawville for both Murrays. An English-speaking Quebec town of 2,000, Shawville is nestled in farm country near the Ontario line 50 miles northwest of Ottawa. In winter it features endless banks of snow. Ice to skate on lasts until spring.

Terry laced on skates at age 4, began playing games at 5.

“After school, that was the thing to do,” Terry recalled recently, having directed one of his first Capitals practices. “Just grab the hockey stick and skates and go play.”

One action spot was a neighbor’s backyard rink that had boards and lights. The kids kept it swept clean. Fifteen to a side sometimes.

They’d play in the street--all ice, no traffic.

“Saturday was the big day,” said Terry. “You’d go down to the arena and you’d have your organized hockey.”

On Victoria Street, which leads into the center of Shawville, is a store with signs: “Murray’s Automotive” and “Murray’s Sports and Casual Wear.” Two other Murray brothers work here, Bill on the sporting goods side of the building, Barrie in auto supplies. In this country, little is more important than having hockey equipment and a car that works.

“Me retire from hockey?” said Bill, 42. “I haven’t retired. I’m just not playing this year. I’ll be back next year.”

A good defenseman who might have made the NHL himself had it not been for a broken wrist, Bill has kept close to the game, playing annually in an industrial league. The only reason he isn’t playing this season is because on Oct. 1, when training began, he was finishing building his new house. “If I’m going to play, I want to be there full-time,” he said. “We’re a dedicated bunch.”

Clarence Murray, 81, instilled in his sons not so much the love of hockey as the “work ethic” they all speak of. He commuted to his work at the power company in Ottawa. With the snowstorms, the drives could be rugged--but no more so than the 150-mile round trip Bryan took daily to Rockland, Ont., for two years when he coached the Rockland Nationals junior team.

Rhoda Murray raised the five boys and five girls. The Murrays lived first on a farm, then in town. A rugged country woman, she never worried about the boys playing a rough game such as hockey. “It was better,” she said, “than having them get into mischief, don’t you think?”

Clarence and Rhoda, Bill and Barrie and their five sisters express the feelings Bryan said they held: “They’re very happy for Terry and they’re disappointed for me. They’re prejudiced in the fact they felt the team acted a little quick. In turn, they know Terry’s ambition was to coach and they’re very happy for him.”

They’re warm-hearted people in cold country. Every summer Murray returns to a cottage on a lake outside of town. His Gambrills home, in the woods, simulates his Canadian cottage. Another reminder of his roots is a painting of Shawville’s narrow main street as it looked a few years ago, with one stoplight and the town hall with a flag on top and old signs along the block--Dodge, Shell, Coca-Cola.

Clarence Murray gets out almost every day, stopping at the coffee shop downtown where the conversation turns to his sons when he walks in--unless the subject already is the Murray boys. The elder Murray always made as many of Terry’s junior games in Ottawa as he could; he watches as many Capitals games as he can pull in. Most nights, he’ll watch any hockey game. “It doesn’t matter,” said Rhoda, “who’s playing.” In this instance, the sons led the father to hockey.

If Terry and Bryan never were pushed in any specific direction, they made the most of opportunities. In 1979, Bryan got his coaching break with Regina when it looked as if he would turn out to be a Shawville businessman with his brothers. “One year when I was playing at Pembroke Junior A,” said Bill, “I brought Terry along for the experience. And he made the team.” Terry was 14.

Being eight years younger, Terry wasn’t particularly close to Bryan when they were growing up. “When I’m 14 years old, I’m sure as heck not hanging around with a guy who’s 22,” said Terry. In fact, he had his brother for a teacher at Shawville High. Bryan taught physical education. “He organized everything,” said Terry. “He left a big impression on me.”

By then, Bryan knew that his thoughts of a career in the NHL were daydreams. He’d watched the old six-team league on TV on Saturday nights. Even if he were a good enough skater, which he doubted, there weren’t jobs. Before graduating from McGill University, he did the most practical thing: He went to work in a mine.

Terry was 19 and in his third year of junior play in Ottawa, living in a boarding house with hockey players and still thinking of joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, when it was pointed out to him by his coach that he might have a chance to play in the recently expanded NHL. At a St. Louis Blues training camp in Ottawa, he saw players he played against. Terry knew it was no idle dream that he could make this league.

As the two brothers progressed along different routes in hockey, they grew closer. In 1982, they were reunited when Terry finished up 12 NHL season with the Capitals under his brother. Then he became Bryan’s assistant coach for six years. They live near each other; their daughters are friends; they car pool. “We really grew together,” said Terry. “We had a lot of conversations. A lot of dinners.”

Terry was in his second season as head coach of the Capitals’ Baltimore farm team when Poile one day recently placed his almost daily phone call to him. What a jolt. Poile wanted him to replace his brother. Later, when Terry called Bryan he said: “First thing I said was: ‘Bryan, I’m really sorry the way things have turned out for you. I just hope that everything works out real well and you land on your two feet.’ He said, ‘Hey, I had a good run at it and now it’s your time.’ ”