The late Bryan Murray left an indelible mark on many from the hockey world, Craig Anderson among them.
The Ottawa Senators goalie, who joined the franchise back in 2011 when Murray acquired him in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche, honoured his former general manager on his mask, which he recently gifted to Murray’s wife and children.
“I just wanted them to know how much of an impact that he made on me and other people’s lives,” Anderson told the Senators website. “Special people deserve special credit and Bryan was. If he didn’t touch so many lives with the way that he handled himself and cared for others the way he did then I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.”
Anderson missed some time during the 2016–17 season while his wife, Nicholle, battled throat cancer. Murray died in August 2017 after a lengthy battle with colon cancer.
“Everything that my family went through in our personal lives and seeing Bryan’s battle that he went through, we just had that common bond,” Anderson said. “I remember sitting in his office just talking about some of his experiences as Nicholle was going through her treatment. It was that common ground where we could sit down and have a casual conversation about a very real, non-hockey subject that had affected both us.”
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