No way...

[Section A]

You must be joking.....we had a hockey player named Murray Death?!

http://hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php3?pid=25388

That has to be the greatest hockey name I've ever heard.
(and there was a kid who played high school hockey back home whose last name was Thrasher.....he's a close second to Death).

Any other ironically appropriate hockey names you've heard of?

EDIT: looks like hockeydb.com has incomplete stats for that 1966-1967 year.



Post Edited (03-12-03 14:23)

[Greg Berge]

I had a faculty brat friend who said that at least by the time he had kids in elementary school the family was pronouncing it "Deeth," for their benefit.

[Al DeFlorio]

Not sure if Murray's still there, but for a long time he worked at Cornell--I think for a time doing development work for the engineering school.  Seems to me at some point he changed the spelling of his name to Deathe, to encourage the proper pronunciation.

Good player, and an important cog on that championship team.  Nice guy, too.

[Section A]

Why did he only play that one year? Or are the stats for his other years just not available?

[zg88]

Well... FWIW... the "Death sisters" (twins?) (both Ithaca High School '84) pronounced their name "Deeth" (spelled "Death") throughout junior/senior high school.  I'm not sure if they are related to Murray, but they both(?) played hockey locally (in Ithaca) during their school years.

Of course, if he were their father, then -- time-line-wise -- Murray would've had to have been a daddy (or, at the very least, a daddy-to-be) during his Cornell hockey days (unless the girls had skipped a coupla grades... or...), so... ummm...??   ::nut::



Post Edited (03-12-03 15:18)

[ExChop]

My dad ('69) is pretty good friends with Murray.  He still works for the college of engineering.  Had a few beers with him after the Harvard game a couple of years back--real nice guy.  Doesn't like the 'death' pronunciation, either...  How cool would it be to be introduced to people as Mr.  Death???

[Al DeFlorio]

Murray played three years and scored 95 points.  Graduated 1967.  Now, according to cornell.edu, he's doing major gifts in development.

[ugarte]

If you want to see a picture of him from his playing days, there is one at the Chapter House.  If the Chapter House is still around and they still have old Cornellalia on the walls.

[CowbellGuy]

Yep. Still there (both the Chapter House and the photo).

[Tom Tseng \'87]

Murray was a colleague of mine in Engineering and later in Development.  He was an associate dean for alumni affairs and development, succeeding Mary Berens when she became the director of alumni affairs for the university.  Later, Murray went to 55 Brown Road and has been with the university development office since.  Don't think he has retired yet...

I was at the "installation" of that imfamous picture of Murray at the Chapter House.  I seem to recall that his friends and colleagues put it up there as a joke on the occasion of his promotion in Engineering.  Early 90s, I want to say.  It might have gone up to replace an older photo.

Indeed, he changed the spelling of his last name to Deathe (but still pronounced DEETH, of course).  Nice guy, for sure...

[jkahn]

Murray centered the 2nd line for our first National championship team.

[peterg]

Murray's a long time golf partner in Ithaca.  He's still in town.  Over the years he coached girls hockey (The Shooting Stars), refereed, and was, I believe, for a time, the ECAC rep who would submit a review of the quality of the officiating after each men's home game.  ack here to work at the Engineering College been in Ithaca.  Murray is one terrific guy.  You can find him at all the games.

[Al DeFlorio]

Murray Death(e) was in Ned's first recruiting class, which utterly transformed Cornell hockey from a struggling wannabe hopeful of stealing an occasional game from an established opponent to the powerhouse of the nation.  

The best way to see what this class did is to go to Greg's site (http://www.spiritone.com/~kepler/tbrw.html ), click on the "Players" box, then click the "By Season" link under "Exhaustive Scoring," and look at how the class of 1967 led the scoring list in 1965 as sophomores and again in 1966 as juniors.  The addition of the great class of 1969 (Dryden, Cornell, Tufford, Pattison, McGuinn, etc.) as sophomores in 1967 filled out that team to NCAA championship level.



Post Edited (03-12-03 20:09)

[Jim Hyla]

Yup, see him at the games all the time. Even way back then it was pronounced deeth, and I don't remember anyone even joking about it. Al is absolutely right about that class ('67). Sometimes in their freshman year there were as many people at the frosh game as the varsity. You really knew something good was happenning then.

[ugarte]

I can understand that an adult with children would want to avoid a lot of references to death.  I am shocked, however, that a teenager playing a game as rough as hockey wouldn't embrace the mispronunciation of his name.  (Though I guess Miroslav Satan wasn't encouraging hellish associations either.)