Feisty brother-sister pair have been boon to Gophers hockey, St. Cloud State wrestling

The Murphys are a family of five in Evergreen Park, a blue-collar suburb which our Chicago expert, La Velle Neal III, describes as being "across the street from the South Side."

The family came about as the result of a marriage between Ed Murphy and Lynne DiGrazia. That must have been quite a wedding reception.

"Irish and Italian families from Chicago," Ed said. "What could go wrong?"

Not much, as it has turned out.

"I'm a tough dad, but my wife … she's been a level 1 trauma nurse in Chicago hospitals for decades," he said. "You'll meet her. She's a great person. She's also the boss."

Ed Murphy was standing at the railing above the seating area at Ridder Arena on Friday night. The No. 2-rated Gophers women's hockey team was just getting started in a game with No. 1 Ohio State.

He had flown to the Twin Cities early in the day to meet some people and then watch daughter Abbey and the Gophers this weekend. Lynne was driving in from Chicago, with oldest son Patrick and his girlfriend, Amanda.

He checked the time and said: "I thought they'd be here by now. Lynne said they ran into some tough weather, though."

The second period was nearly complete and the Gophers were absorbing a thrashing by the time Lynne, Patrick and Amanda made it to Ridder.

"Nine hours it took us," Lynne said. "The roads and traffic were terrible."

She was smiling about it. Why not? Trauma nurse in Chicago. Lynne's been through worse.

Ed is an ex-Marine and a union pipe fitter. He comes off as a guy who could have been sitting at the bar with George Wendt on the Bears' "Superfans" skit on "Saturday Night Live," talking about "Ditka" as the only solution to problems, but then came this:

"Frosty and his staff are some of the best people you're ever going to meet."

And then we were talking about Dominic, the middle Murphy, Abby's older brother by a year and a 197-pound wrestler at St. Cloud State with All-America status in Division II.

"That coach up there, Steve [Costanzo] … he's tremendous," Ed said. "You give him the effort, he's going to get the best out of you."

A moment later, a pair of Zumwinkles, Grace and Anna — hockey-playing older sisters to Emily, a Gophers junior — were having a laugh-filled conversation with Murphy there at the railing.

It was like Uncle Ed was in town.

Dominic and Abbey were only that year apart. Patrick was a couple of years older, so Dom and the kid sister were the main eventers in most family disputes.

"She's a chippy son of a gun, as you see on the hockey rink," Dom said. "There were some fights, and lots of roughhousing. We were rivals growing up. Somehow, that made us as close as we are now.

"It's not much over an hour between St. Cloud and the Minnesota campus. I get to her games whenever possible, and Abbey does the same for my matches."

Late Friday afternoon, Dominic would be on a bus with the St. Cloud State wrestling team, heading for a Saturday dual meet against the University of Sioux Falls.

Which meant he was in a need of a dog sitter for his 1-year-old pit bull called "Messi." The original plan was for Abbey to drive up after practice Thursday, share a steak dinner prepared by brother Dominic and then take Messi back to the Twin Cities.

Dom Murphy redshirted as a freshman, as do most wrestlers for Costanzo, and then competed for a couple of seasons at 174 pounds.

"I would get up to 210 in the summer, and I wasn't a chunker," Murphy said. "Cutting 30, 35 pounds, you can't be at your strongest. Last season, Coach said, 'I want you to try 197 pounds.'

"Going up two weight classes, that was nerve-racking, but it has been an outstanding move for me."

What's your national ranking in Division II? "I was fourth in the nationals last year," he said. "But the rating — I don't pay attention. I worry about the guy across the mat."

Sometimes, in the basement of the Murphy house, the person across the mat was the chippy son of a gun — sister Abbey.

"Let me tell you something," papa Murphy said. "We're finally having new drywall put in the basement. The guy doing the work told me, 'There are 172 holes in the drywall down there.'

"A lot of those came from pucks. Some came from bodies."