The former trainer for the Calgary Flames has enough stories to fill a book.

And now Jim "Bearcat" Murray has the book to prove it.

In his self-titled book Bearcat writes about the early days at the old Stampede Corral and some of the great players who came up from Okotoks and played there like the Gare, Holland and Rogers line with Danny Gare, Jerry Holland and Mike Rogers.

"Back in the Centennial days, that was awesome for Calgary and of course Okotoks and the whole area for them to come up and play for our junior Centennial team and be such great players and all of them went pro and did very well and so it was really a bonus for the area that we got them," said Murray. "the old Corral was something else, we started it from Okotoks there with the Okotoks Oilers playing in the Big 6 league there, playing every Sunday, they had a double-header and we played in there at that time and it was very eventful and a really good thing for Okotoks.

He talks glowingly of his coach Elmer Piper.

"I always say the best coach that I ever had, he treated me real well when he picked me as a jockey, I was a darned jockey and he picked me and wanted me to come out and play with the Oilers along with some of my friends and we all played for him for years and he taught me so much about the game of hockey and he had done very well with the B.C. team that had won the world hockey thing a ways back and then we hired him here, he came in here, bought a garage and lived here and raised his family here."

Coincidentally the Murray and Piper Arenas are next door to each other at the Okotoks Recreation Centre.

Bearcat also relates the story of the biggest hockey triumph he was part of, but surprisingly it wasn't winning the Stanley Cup in 1989 as much as beating the Edmonton Oilers in 1986.

"Like I said in the book, in '86 when we beat Edmonton was the greatest thrill I had in hockey my whole career, of everything, was to beat them and of course they had a really good team, but so did we and we beat them and that, to me was probably the biggest highlight of my whole career was that, what a thrill it was to do that.

He also talks about how that game cemented him as a celebrity.

"I got chasing a guy in the stands with my son Allan and ended up, I didn't really break my leg but I really sprained it really bad and I had to go into a cast for a month of so....everything got quite eventful and of course that was the night the Bearcat Murray Fan Club was born, the guys in Boston formed the club because when I wrecked my leg there I was on live TV and acting stupid and being funny and they started the Bearcat Murray Fan Club."

Bearcat's been kept busy promoting the book including some book signings in the local area.

 

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