The Ben Mulroney Show - Ken Dryden -- the heartwarming story you haven't heard about the man.

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

- Kavi Murphy   If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Hey, thanks, son. What do I owe you? Don't worry about it. It's payday. Payday, huh? I bet you it went straight into your bank account and you didn't even check your pay stuff. My what? Your pay stuff. Back in my day, you had to wait for a physical check. Then you had to go to the bank. Deposit it, I wait for it to clear. Your pay really. meant something. Payroll is incredibly complex. It's art and the science. It literally keeps the economy moving. Parole professionals do a lot for us. You know, it's about time we do something for them. How about we ask our leaders to name a day in their honor, a national day to recognize payroll professionals. I got it. This is perfect. Why don't we explain to people just how

important the roles are the payroll professionals play in our lives? We can even ask them to sign a petition. We can even ask them to sign a petition to recognize the third Tuesday in September as the National Day to recognize payroll professionals. We'll rally support and bring the payroll party to the nation. National payroll party? Precisely. Sounds like a plan, you know, just one thing. What's that?

I'm choosing the music. What? And I'm sitting in the backseat. The whole way? The whole way. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber,

maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help. That's what BetterHelp is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment. After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs.

Most people get it right the first time. But if it's not a match, you can switch counselors anytime at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney.

That's BetterHELP.com slash Mulrooney. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney's show. And I've got to say it's a point of pride on this show to be able to share stories that are that are outside of the news cycle, but are equally important. And once you hear them, you're going to want to share them and they're going to stay with you for a very long time. You know, this next story isn't a sports story. It's not a eulogy for Ken Dryden. What Ken Dryden did on the ice was legendary, winning six Stanley Cups in an eight-year career for my Montreal Canadians.

But he gave it up to pivot and open up a new aspect of his life, pursuing a law to rewriting books, becoming the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, serving as an MP, eventually a cabinet minister. Our story today is not about that. It's about the remarkable man that he was, off the ice, beyond politics, beyond the boardrooms. It's about who he was as a person.

And to get into this story, a little bit of backstory, there's a gentleman by the name of Kevin Murphy. And Kevin, years ago, adopted a young boy from India named Kavi. And they bonded as father and son do over their shared love of the Montreal Canadians. And in 2019, Kevin was diagnosed with cancer of the kidneys. In 2022, Kevin was given six months to live. And so that's where I'm going to end my part of the story, and we're going to pick it up with a story that aired on Global National on October 13th, 2022.

With Kevin in palliative care, Kavi went to the Hockey Hall of Fame to collect his thoughts. It's where his dad used to go all the time to see the statue of his favorite player, Ken Dryden. And there, under the statue, he knew what he had to do. So I went home immediately, grabbed all our stuff, all our jerseys, all our figures, cards. And that night while he was asleep, I put them all up in his room. As I said, that story here, just under three years ago. And what happened next is a part of the story that very few people know. Ken Dryden saw that story.

And through the Hall of Fame, reached out to Mike Droulet, who as I, as you all know, is my producer on this show. and that was his voice that you heard on that global national story. And Mike arranged a face-to-face Zoom meeting between Dryden and the Murphys. And Dryden wanted to talk to them for them. He wanted to talk to them not because it was something to be aired on the news or to showcase how generous of spirit Ken was. This was about a conversation that Ken wanted to have with this man and his son. And that Friday they spoke for 30 minutes. and the next morning, Kevin passed away.

Today, Cavi, is sharing that video for the very first time. Cavi, welcome to the show. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for being here. Hi there. Thank you. It's great to be here. Before we get into anything, I've watched the interview so many times.

I've watched parts of the conversation with Ken Dryden. Your father must have meant the world and probably, still means the world to you, as somebody who recently lost my father as well, I can appreciate that hole that it leaves. But how are you doing dealing with that loss today? I'm doing all right. It's definitely been a tough two and a half years. It's been pretty difficult, but having that video and having that memory gave me a lot of closure and makes me feel really great today. And I go back and watch it whenever I'm sad. Let's play a little bit of that for our listeners and our viewers right now. Hello. Hello, Ken. Mr. Dragging, how are you? I'm okay. Nice to

meet you, Kevin. And nice, nice to meet you, too. Wow. Wow. It's a beautiful honor to meet you. Well, I hear you're a pretty special person and I hear you've got a pretty special son. He's the best. I love him very much. He's gone out of his way all his life to make me happy. So I'm very appreciative to have a son like this. And that's just a taste of it. We're going to air. We'll share a little more of that after the break.

But, Kavi, I wanted to speak to you a little bit. You know, when you found out that your father was sick, what did that mean to you? How old were you when you found out that he was first diagnosed with cancer? I was 17 years old at the time That's a pretty big burden for a 17 year old to carry A pretty big responsibility And so just walk me through that journey As you watched this man that meant the world to you

Get progressively weaker Yeah I mean It was the hardest thing I've ever had to really witness I mean I always thought that my dad was going to protect me and be there for me forever and I would always have him to fall back on and I would always have him. But, you know, I think that really taught me that, you know, life is just really random and things happen randomly to everybody. And, you know, we can't really control these sorts of things. We can only really handle how we deal with them and how we persevere.

So your dad's in palliative care. and you're trying to make sense of it. You're trying to find strength and you go to the Hockey Hall of Fame and you have this idea that you're going to make his room its own version of the Hall of Fame. And so you take care of this. And when he wakes up and he sees what you did,

what was his reaction? Oh my God. He was amazed. It was the first game of the season that night, the Canadians versus the Leafs. And I just wanted to make it special for him. I wanted to bring a bit of our home to the room because it was just so bland and boring for weeks. And I knew he hadn't probably had much time left.

So I wanted to just kind of give him something to just make him feel special and make him feel more like he was at home. And that in and of itself would have been a highlight for your dad to, and it's not just the, It's not just the, sort of the memorabilia. As a matter of fact, that was probably secondary, but it was probably your dad's appreciation of what you were willing to do for him that meant the most to him. Yeah, I think it really was. And as he said in that video, yeah, it really did mean a lot to him.

And it was very special. Well, that in and of itself meant a lot. But then to find out that Ken's riding himself, wanted to have a conversation with you and your dad um that that must have bold you over yeah yeah i mean that that's always been my dad's hero for since he was like five years old he told me since i was five years old how much he idolized this man and all these great stories about ken in between the polls and all these heroic stories the the sum of series and everything he's meant everything that on my dad's last day here that ken would take

time out of his day to speak with him for that long and yeah it was just incredible you know when my um yeah i've i i knew my dad loved hockey uh but there was a day where he was able to meet jean belle evo and maurice richard on the exact same day and i witnessed my father turn into a kid in a way I'd never seen before and he was he was amongst his heroes and I'd never seen him be deferential to anyone in this way before there's something about those childhood heroes that that take our dads back to being kids and to witness that for me was something really really special and even with your dad with your dad's illness being so prevalent you must have you must have heard something in his voice as weak as he was that was different, that was

special, that was unique. And to experience it at the end of his life, there's got to be happiness in that sadness. 100%. I think that's where I get all the closure from. You said it perfectly. He seemed just like a kid again. And I think that was one of those things that he wished he always. always could have done. And in that last final moments of life, he finally got to fulfill that

wish. And to make that happen and to get that with Ken and with my dad, just that's something I'll always be forever grateful for. All right. Well, don't go anywhere. Coming up on the Ben Mulroney show, we're going to continue this conversation with Cavie Murphy about this last interaction between his father and the late great Ken Dryden. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We're having a conversation about the love between a father and a son and a son and his father, their shared love of hockey and a really important conversation, a very fortuitous moment that occurred near the end of that father's life

when he was able to speak with his childhood hero, Ken's Riden, on the day before he passed. We're joined now by the son. in this story, Kavi Murphy, who was there by his father's bedside as he was passing away of cancer. And on the day before he died, and of course, Cavy didn't know that his dad was going to die the next day. They were able to orchestrate a conversation between his father and his childhood hero, Ken's riding. Cavi, thank you so much for sticking around with us. So we've got some more clips to air of this 30-minute conversation that occurred. What was it like? I mean,

At certain points, you were brought into the conversation, but I'm sure that you were sitting there, listening to your dad's voice, what was different about his conversation with Ken's Riden who meant so much to him compared to other conversations that he's had in the days prior? I mean, the days prior, my dad was barely even able to speak. And for that conversation, he was speaking

almost perfectly for somebody at that stage. I mean, he was trying so hard just to get anything out so he was able to speak to Ken. And he was. Ken was able to hear everything he was saying. He was so patient with him and so good. And it just meant everything. My dad was so soft-spoken and just so excited.

And you could see and hear that in his voice. and it's just so special. Well, you know, Ken Dryden was known as not just an incredible hockey player, but he had a way with words. You know, he had a perspective and almost a sage wisdom that was anybody who had heard him speak knew that there was a depth to him that, you know, is not as common amongst hockey players as one would hope. So let's listen.

There's some moments in there that I think are important for everyone to hear. Let's play that first clip. Well, I'm sure that you, I mean, just in the kinds of things that you and Kavi have shared, those are deep inside you and they are deep inside Kavi. And those things don't go away. They absolutely never go away. No, I never knew. She's fantastic in what he did.

He surprised me. And that's my biggest son in life. Well, you know, I think that's the case for all of us. I mean, that, you know, we love what we're doing. We hope we're good at what we're doing. But in the end, you know, what we have really is what we pass on. And what we pass on is to those who are closest to us. Oh, geez.

I'm looking at your face, Cavy, and I'm seeing a big smile on your face. It's tough to hear. Yeah, those words really resonate. Yeah, yeah. I always tell people the pain I feel from losing my dad. That's the gift, right? Like, this is the reminder of the love.

This is the reminder of what he meant to me. And if I didn't feel this, it would be because he meant nothing. to me. How do you feel when those moments of sadness hit you? Because I view them as a gift. They're definitely a gift. They're a reminder of all the great times and all the great memories and everything

that we shared and everything that he loved and everything that I loved. And yeah, it's just it's the best. Talk to me. Before we go back to it, what are you doing with your life? life now. You must have your dad passed away. He meant everything to you. There must have been a moment where where you felt alone, sure that you had the memories, but what are you doing now? I actually live here in Montreal. Yeah, you do. Nice. Yeah, I do. And I go to a bunch of Habs games here. I go to school here. And I love it. It's awesome. It reminds me a lot of my dad and

the time that we spent here and hung out here and it's just the best. Oh, that's amazing. Listen, I go back to Montreal a lot. I would love to come back to Montreal and the two of us go to a game together. That would make me very, very happy. My dad always insisted on me wearing a blazer to the games because he was old school. Like he went to games like 20, 30, 40 years ago where it was that thing that you did. And he thought anybody who showed up without a blazer on was disrespecting the halves.

I mean, obviously today everyone shows up in a jersey. But back in the day, if I didn't show up in a blizzard, Blazor, he would not bring me to the games. Yeah. There you go. You can show up in Blazers. Yeah, you and me go from Blazers. We have some hot dogs and we enjoy the game and we remember our dad.

There was another, there's another piece of audio that we want to share where your dad where Ken shared a story with your dad about Team Canada. The story that we were told is what the queen does or did for all of these photos before everyone she got all of the group to say not cheese but to say butterfly and apparently that's what they say for official photos at buckingham palace and stuff like that for everybody is as the picture is about to be taken it's three two one butterfly so why don't we do that yeah you ready Let's do a three, two, one, butterfly. Got it.

And, of course, he took a picture in that moment. This was a meeting that was set up between Mike Droulet, my producer, and you, your dad, and Ken Dryden. And, of course, it wasn't meant for public consumption. This was for you and for your family. And there's something really wonderful about that, that nobody was doing it to get any publicity and nobody was doing it to, you know, drum up support for X, Y, or Z. But now it feels like it's the right time to share this story. How do you feel about opening up this part of your very private life to the public on something this personal? Yeah, I fully agree.

I think it's a story that speaks to Ken's character. and speaks to the amazing person and the amazing things that he went out of his way to do behind closed doors for his fans and for people that loved him and idolized him and just shows his character

and his greatness. Before I let you go, what are your thoughts on the HABS this year? We're going to do great. Ivan Demadov. We got the rookie of the year last year, Hudson. Yeah. No, this is a young, exciting team. And I, you know, I'm, I'm living in Toronto as a Habs fan. I'm living in in the snake pit, right? And I've got, I've got people coming at me left, right and center. But this, this is, there is optimism springs eternal for the Habs, especially when you got a team this young. Yes. Yes, there is. Well, listen, Kavi, I want to thank you so, so very much for sharing this story. It's, it's a story of inspiration. It's a story of inspiration. It's a

story of a love that, you know, people like yourself and myself were lucky enough to have with dads that meant that much to us. And the fact that you were able to give your dad that moment with his, with his idol. And then he passed away the very next day. Did you think he was holding on for something like that? Do you think that this was, that once this happened, that he was able to let go? Yeah. Yeah. One hundred percent. And I think that really gave him the peace that he needed to finally just go and pass on. I think he had been fighting as much as he could to stay there for me. And I think that giving him that finally made him understand that he could go peacefully.

Kevin Murphy, it's been an honor. Thank you so much for sharing this part of your family, this part of your love of hockey, this part of your wonderful father. and allowing us to know this national treasure that was Ken Dryden in a different and more intimate and personal way. It means a lot to me, and I'm sure it means a lot to the listeners of this show. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Mike Droulet, as the person who put this together, I want to thank you for allowing us to share it on this show.

Thank you. You did a masterful job. Absolutely. All right. Well, listen, thank you to everybody for sticking around for that. What an important conversation. At the Nissan all in clear out, there's nothing more chill than financing an award-winning Nissan for just 0%. Enjoy the soothing relaxation of zero stress, zero worries, zero indecision. Hurry in, because once they're gone, there will be zero left. the Nissan all-in clear-out. Get 0% financing plus up to $500 bonus on some of our best-selling models. You have zero reasons to wait. Conditions apply. See your local Nissan dealer today.