Finding Murph
Rick Westhead
Harper Collins, 2020
First-rate story about an NHL star victimized by the league’s failure to recognize the long term impact of concussions.Focusses on Joe Murphy who won an NCAA championship with Michigan State and a Stanley Cup with Edmonton. The 1986 first draft choice played 779 regular games over 15 NHL seasons (233 goals & 528 points) adding 77 points in 120 playoff games.
Sure Joe was a different kind of guy affectionately described by teammates as “odd,” and "an airhead” but when he took a hit to the head on Jan 9, 1991 and things changed.
Westhead strengthens his thesis through access to many documents and e-mails previously under seal with US courts in connection with a concussion lawsuit.
The e-mails reveal the league’s mindset. Medical people who warned of long term damage were “dumbass doctors” just putting out “imbecilic rants” with “no idea what they are talking about” because, of course, they had never played.
They were “tree huggin…leftist doctors… that soon won’t let us climb stairs for fear of concussion,” wrote the NHL’s director of officiating.
We “view ourselves as a family” said NHL Commissioner Bettman, who called any evidence of concussion brain damage anecdotal. What family would reject care of a loved one by denying the science? “No conclusive link,” Bettman would say as recently as 2019.
Meanwhile, Joe Murphy is homeless in Kenora (when the book ends) and apparently still today in Saskatchewan.
Like Ken Dryden’s Game Change Westhead’s book is a clarion call for the sports world to take concussions more seriously.
