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Re: Murray Armstrong Passes Away
Go to the LetsGoDU blog and check out the list for Armstrong. Aug. 2009 in an interview with Bob Peers he recounts the hat incident among many other memories of Murray. Nevermind, here's the hat story which is only a small part of the interview by D.J. Powers.
I'm going back to read the rest.
Originally posted by Pablo
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It was my freshman year and I had made a campus visit. There were three recruits out of Winnipeg that were also supposed to come down, and two of those guys ended up going to North Dakota that following year. So I went up to Winnipeg and was supposed to get on a train coming down to Denver. I showed up at the house of Brian Strimbiski and Bob Stoyko and they said, “We’re not going.” So I said, “what do you mean your not going?” Then they said, “Nope, we’re not going. We got a better offer from North Dakota for next year and we’re going to pass on Denver.” Then I said “your loss.” So anyway, Strimbiski had this box of hats. It was a cardboard box, and I asked him “what’s that?” He said “they’re Biltmore Stetsons.” And at that time Biltmores were made in Guelph, Ontario and they had a junior hockey team that had won a couple of times and they were called the Guelph Biltmores. And Murray was a Western distributor in Canada for Biltmore hats. So he was getting a bunch of these hats down to Denver to give to all of his cronies, friends and everything like that. So I inherited these hats and here I am a kid of 18 and didn’t know what the hell was going on. So I get on this train going down to Denver thinking that I was going with two buddies and ended up going all by myself. So they would check customs and immigration right on the train. So I’m sitting in the car and this guy comes by and asked me where I was going. I got out my student visa and then he asked “do you have any luggage?” and I said, “Yes, it’s back in the luggage compartment.” Then he asked if I had anything to declare. Being naïve I said “no, but I’ve got a bunch of hats.” He then asks “what kind of hats?” I said, “I don’t know. I’m taking them for the coach.” So then he says, “Oh, lets go down and have a look at those.” So I said ok and we walked down to the baggage car there and he opens up the box. Then he says “oh, they’re nice, expensive hats, but you can’t bring those in (to the US).” Then I said to him “but they’re not mine!” Then he says to me “when you get into the Denver, this guy that you’re talking about, this Murray Armstrong is going to have to pay duty on them.” So I said, “fine, I don’t care.” So the train gets into Union Station in Denver and Murray’s waiting there. So then Murray says to me “Bob, how was your trip down?” and I told him that it was great. Then Murray asks, “Did you bring my hats?” I said, “Yeah Murray, but I think there’s a problem.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “well, I got stopped and you’ve got some paperwork to do.” So then he says, “Well, we’ll see about that!” So Murray goes over to the clearinghouse area and everything. And Murray was quite loquacious. So the next thing I know, this guy at the baggage claim was saying to Murray “yes sir, yes sir, I’m sorry sir” and then he just gave him the hats! (Laughs) And I don’t know what the heck Murray had said to him, but he got his hats. So that was the first time that I knew this guy has something to offer. He’s obviously well known and articulate. He was able to finesse or whatever without being dishonest. He wasn’t dishonest, but I think he said that they were gifts. So by the code and everything, you can bring in gifts. He said, “I’m not reselling them or anything like that. I paid for them, so these are for my friends.” And I think that’s how he got around it. He’s quite a guy.”
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