Of course an icon of the 80s. I remember 2&7 got him to share his shoe secret and thought it was either turf or golf shoes with the soft rubber spikes so he could run on the ice.
Shots of him on the bench in 1986 beating the Oilers and other overtime wins, flailing his arms and jumping up and down on the bench are etched into the memory.
Last edited by browna; 06-14-2022 at 07:03 PM.
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For a kid who grew up in 80s Calgary, I thought all teams had a trainer like Bearcat, I mean why wouldn’t you? Then I realized he was special, really special. He was as important to the culture of that era as Lanny.
Larger than life character that embodied down to earth hard work, passion, and likability. The man was Calgary’s spirit in human form. Lost a great one today.
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Absolute legend.
The fact that so many of us as kids even knew of him so well speaks to the character he was.
I think of some of the non players or coaches that have been around this team like Bearcat, Maher & Whalen; boy has this organization had some great people around it.
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A number of years ago at an alumni charity golf tourney for sick kids, they had presentation at dinner with images of struggling kids with cancer etc. when it was over I went out on the deck for a cigar, a little ways away I saw someone crouched down next to a tree and he looked somewhat in distress so I ran over to make sure everything was OK, It was Jim, he was crying his eyes out over that presentation and that's what he said to me.
Never forget it, what a great human being.
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Did they pay any kind of tribute to him during the Stanley Cup finals game at all tonight? If Ron MacLean, who worked and travelled with the the Flames in the 80,s failed to make mention of his passing, then shame on him!!
__________________ Are the Oilers trying to set a record for most scumbags on the payroll??
Of course an icon of the 80s. I remember 2&7 got him to share his shoe secret and thought it was either turf or golf shoes with the soft rubber spikes so he could run on the ice.
Shots of him on the bench in 1986 beating the Oilers and other overtime wins, flailing his arms and jumping up and down on the bench are etched into the memory.
bottom video at around 1:15 a youthful Chris Cuthbert interviewing Alec/Allan MacInnis
Did they pay any kind of tribute to him during the Stanley Cup finals game at all tonight? If Ron MacLean, who worked and travelled with the the Flames in the 80,s failed to make mention of his passing, then shame on him!!
Yes they did, before game start. I wasn't able to pay full attention to it but MacLean had a monologue with a video montage. It may have lasted a couple of minutes.
Yes they did, before game start. I wasn't able to pay full attention to it but MacLean had a monologue with a video montage. It may have lasted a couple of minutes.
I thought Ron MacLean did a very nice tribute for Bearcat (and I’m not a MacLean fan).
I read this from The Athletic and did not see it posted yet:
Remembering Jim (Bearcat) Murray
I was trying to come up with the best way of describing Jim (Bearcat) Murray, the long-time Calgary Flames trainer who died this week, but my counterpart in Toronto, Steve Simmons, got it right first. Simmons described Bearcat as the only celebrity trainer in NHL history — and that summed it up pretty well. Murray was a larger-than-life character, who won the job of head trainer of the 1980-81 Flames after a long career with a variety of junior teams in town.
Small, mustachioed, bald-headed, quick as a cat, he could get to an injured player on the ice faster than just about anyone because he sometimes had spikes in his sneakers. He is the only trainer ever with his own fan club. Back before Murray retired in 1996, a collective of sometimes overserved hockey fans from Boston that would show up once a year or so for a Flames’ away game, outfitted to look like the distinctive Bearcat. In retirement, Murray became an ambassador for the team, showing up at virtually every celebrity golf tournament all summer. He was chosen in 2009 for the PHATS Hall of Fame, a peer award that meant a lot to him. Murray was 89.
