They never called him Fast Eddie
to my knowledge, I made that part up, but they should have,
but this city knew his name, celebrated him
star in 3 sports, no wait 4, fledgling hockey leagues competing and
losing the Stanley cup with men who would be come Ottawa Senator legends
Alf Smith, Westwick, Westwicks would deliver me, small cirles,
Football, Rugby of the day, but Lacrosse, that filled the stadiums
put the boys on ships to cross seas for things other than killing,
before the killing started

Born to the River (1873–1893)

Ottawa wind and July light,
A boy born loud, a boy born right,
By Rideau’s bend where workers tread,
With iron hands and a stubborn head.

Brother, sister, hearth and stone,
St. George’s ward he called his own—
While others prayed for safer days,
Eddie learned the bruiser’s ways.

Hometown Bloodsport (1894–1899)

Lacrosse stick high, the crowd in roar,
He bled for town and bled for more.
Hockey ice and football mud,
Teeth on grass and knuckles blood.

Electrician by morning bell,
By night the name the papers tell—
Ottawa cheered, “That Murphy lad,”
The toughest joy the city had.

III. Caps and Cups (1900–1904)

Stanley’s silver caught his name,
World champs carved him into flame.
Six teeth gone, still back he came,
A captain’s heart, a workingman’s frame.

Kate beside him, vows held fast,
While seasons broke bones like glass—
From Shamrocks green to Capitals red,
Eddie led where others fled.

IV. Left Off, Then Loved (1906–1907)

Then ink ran cold on a March-time sheet—
Murphy left off, a public slight.
Owner Tasse thought numbers neat,
But Ottawa roared into the night.

Pubs rang loud, the papers burned,
“Put Eddie back—this wrong be turned!”
By April’s grace, the error mended,
The people won; the fight was ended.

V. Last Hard Seasons (1907–1911)

Europe sang his captain’s name,
He sang back louder, half in pain.
Concussions, debts, the body worn,
Still coaching boys not yet reborn.

From hero’s prime to mentor’s hand,
He taught them how to take a stand—
Not just to win, but bear the cost
Of loving games already lost.

VI. Home, Loss, and Quiet (1912–1934)

Children born, and parents gone,
Ottawa changed, the cheers moved on.
Elgin Street, a smaller room,
A fighter resting near his doom.

When Eddie passed, the city knew—
They buried more than one man too.
They laid to rest a fearless age,
Ink, ice, blood, and open rage.

VII. What the Old Men Still Say

Ask old stones or winter air
Who bled first when none would dare—
They’ll say his name, low, proud, and slow:
Eddie Murphy—don’t forget him so.

Here is the series of articles when Tasse the owner of the team made the mistake of leaving Ed off the Euro championship team, rich pricks are always cheap assholes, it didn’t sit well with the public, it didn’t sit well with the team. Don’t screw with Murphy’s, they’ll spit out their teeth, smile back, and then their great grandchildren will write diss songs about what a douche bag their nemesis’s were.

Eddies Passing

This job is about balance
one which is never struck
an equilibrium I was never granted
but an exclamation mark at the end
Save 10 in December
Recover 6 in January
from a town of 2200
Thebacha “beside the rapids”

The North remembers every flight
etched across its frozen lungs, hungry ribcage of ice and rock
and sometimes it pulls the sky down to its maw
before the landing lights can blink and teeth clinch

First:
December twenty-seven.
A Twin Otter stitching winter’s seams
between Margaret Lake and Lac de Gras
falters into the white.
Metal kisses ice too hard. Lipstick, smeared
The fuselage buckles, contractions of a chamber
Ten hearts thrum inside the bruised machine,
breath turning to crystaline fear suspended in midair.

Through wind like a wolf’s howl,
searchers fall from a Hercules
like stars shaken loose  plucked from the milky way
They dig into the night,
find six in a tent of thin hope,
four still tangled in the downed bird’s ribs.
Together huddled,
trading soup and stories,
warming each other against the blizzard’s teeth
until morning, remembers them.

Not all scars bleed.
Some simply freeze, turns purplish white

Then:
January twenty-three.
Dawn just beginning to stretch its pale fingers
over Fort Smith’s runway.
A Jetstream bursts forward
toward a day that won’t arrive.
After takeoff, the earth rises too soon,
claims six souls in an instant,
leaves one trembling still tethered
to life’s fraying thread.

Grief echoes along snowmobile tracks
and training manuals and radio static.
Rescuers navigate a tundra
that swallows certainty whole.
They come anyway.
They always come.

The North, vast and unanswering,
holds both miracles and mourning
in the same cold breath.
Crashes in winter’s clutch
two chapters carved in ice:
one survival, bright as a flare in darkness,
and one silence, a hoarse murmur behind you
only families can decipher.

But scattered there in the debris field,  through the wreckage
runs truth: Wings break,
humans rise.
They leap into storms, off ramps
with hands full of help, backs teathered to the gods
and hearts that insist
no one should be alone
beneath a fallen sky swallowed in that giant maw called the north.