Murray’s career had a memorable start

Younger fans, or those who simply weren’t following the NHL 21 years ago, might not know the story of how Terry Murray first became an NHL head coach. It came up last night, after Murray coached his 1,000th game. In 1983, shortly after the end of his NHL playing career, Murray was hired as an assistant coach in Washington by his brother, Bryan, the head coach. Terry Murray spent five seasons as an assistant, then became head coach of the AHL team in Baltimore. Just more than halfway through the 1989-90 season, Bryan Murray was fired, and guess who got the call to replace him? His brother, Terry. It’s quite a story. Murray talked about it, when asked what he remembers about his first game as an NHL head coach…

MURRAY: “Everything. It’s like it happened two years ago. Time goes by too fast, doesn’t it? It was difficult, in a sense, because I was replacing my brother. That was hard. I was there as his assistant for six years. So I definitely was prepared for an opportunity, but when I got the phone call from the general manager, David Poile, he said, `I just want you to know, a change has been made already. It happened three hours ago. So here’s the deal: if you want to be the head coach, I want you to have the job. If you say no, somebody else is going to get the job, so I want you to know that this has already taken place.’ So that’s what you’re working for, is the opportunity. The great thing about a brother, Bryan, he supported me 100 percent. He was totally on board with me being the person who was selected, so we moved forward from there.’’

This is Murray’s fourth head-coaching job, including stints in Washington, Philadelphia and Florida, and Murray was asked about the importance of getting another opportunity, when the Kings hired him in 2008 to replace Marc Crawford. Murray had been an assistant coach with the Flyers for the previous four seasons.

MURRAY: “A coach is a coach. This is what I do. And I was coaching before, so that took care of the urge, I guess, to do anything else. I was very satisfied with what I was doing. I’m just very grateful for the opportunity to get back into it as a head coach, for Mr. Anschutz and Tim Leiweke giving Dean Lombardi the opportunity to give me a call. You’re forever grateful to people who give you another chance. It’s great to be here, and I love the environment and I love the attitude of what the players are showing, a young group that’s working hard for each other and want to get better. And we’re moving in the right direction. We’re a pretty good hockey club, and this team can be a good club for a lot of years because of the youth.’’

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