It's why the Chinese business behind the teams, also named Kunlun Red
Star, has been able to attract the names it has, from Keenan to Hockey
Hall of Famer Phil Esposito to former NHL forward Bobby Carpenter to,
yes, Murphy. (Esposito and Carpenter are on the Red Star international
advisory board.)
"These are legends," Tanner Glass Authentic Jersey MacPherson said. "What they're going to do is we're going to try and
create a Wayne Gretzky, a Phil Esposito, a Mike Keenan, a Digit Murphy,
so at some point they're Chinese."
That will be how success is measured, whether they can -- at some point
-- hand this whole grand experiment back to the Chinese, put it in their
hands, and watch it seamlessly succeed.
"If anyone's going to do it," said Rob Morgan, coach of the Vanke Rays,
"it's going to be Digit."The tears start falling early on, not long
before the players take the ice for warmups: Brown and Kunlun. Old and
new. Then and now. Murphy seems resigned to the tears. She figured this
would happen, even as she fought against it. She's back in her place, at
Brown, looking back on a part of her life that has ended.
"It's the kids," she says. "It's not even my players -- it's my kids."
She pauses, eyes spilling over.
"I promised I wasn't Tie Domi Authentic Jersey going to do this," she says. "You got me. I'm Italian, I can't help it.
But, no, it's just something that it's very cool, and these are tears
of joy."
There is vindication in the evening, as her new team shuts out her old
team in a resounding victory that matters, even though it's only an
exhibition. She is not the same person she was at Brown, not the same
coach. Where once, as Meaghan Murphy points out, she would skate her
players "until they puked," there is now a softer approach, a more
open-minded style that fits with the different population that she now
coaches.
It might not work every night, in every situation, but it has worked
tonight. She has beaten back her past and celebrated with her future.
She ends the night Walt Tkaczuk Authentic Jersey surrounded by her team, both the one on the ice and the one in the rest
of her life, her partner, her kids, her people. She will be in the
United States for another month and then it's off to China, back to the
place that she is trying to embrace, trying to teach, trying to bring to
the highest heights --- five years to a medal.
It is unbelievable, even as she makes you believe in the possibility.
"When you say, 'Why?' I always say, 'Why not?'" Murphy said. "Like, why
not do this?"
It's why she was hired. It's why she just might pull this off.
