Stanley Cup Champion Slept in the Bush

Joe Murphy was the first player chosen in the 1986 NHL Draft. As a prospect in 1985 he was compared with Hall of Famers Dale Hawerchuk and Mario Lemieux. He went on to play 779 games over 15 seasons, won the Stanley Cup with the Edmonton Oilers in 1990 and earned more than 15 million dollars. His career ended in a strange fashion during the 2000-2001 season.

By early April 2018 he was living outdoors in Kenora, Ontario. According to CTV's W5 report, published in October 2018, he had spent about six months sleeping at a local homeless shelter, on a Canadian Tire property and in the bush along Highway 17, the Trans-Canada Highway. The report describes him as bankrupt.

Asked how it came to this, Murphy did not point to one cause. He attributed it to a combination of factors, including poor choices he admitted making, drug use after his playing days, and prescription medications that teams gave players to keep them on the ice. He wondered whether those medications made his situation worse.

Reporter Rick Westhead and former goaltender Trevor Kidd tracked him down in Kenora after tips, and he agreed to share his story. Earlier, in September, NHL Alumni Association president Glenn Healy and his former Oilers teammate Adam Graves had visited him; neither commented publicly.

An attempt to place him in an apartment did not work out. The NHL/NHLPA Emergency Assistance Fund then reportedly agreed to pay for a motel room, which was covered through the end of October. He was due to receive an NHL pension of about 1,100 dollars a month.