The American Collegiate Hockey Association will play its national tournament in Ames the first weekend in March. The Cyclone hockey team wants to score the national title and win the Murdoch Cup.

Murdoch Cup. Yes, it sounds familiar because it is. The national award was named after Iowa State’s very own hockey coach, Dr. Al Murdoch.

The award was named after the coach after he completed his second year as the first president of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA).

Murdoch was born in Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada, in 1946. He first laced up skates when he was five years old and chased pucks all the way to Brandon College.

After completing one year there, 19-year-old Murdoch decided to get a teacher’s permit and become a high school physical education teacher.

The school that hired him didn’t know he was 365 days shy of 20. “I never told anybody how old I was,” Murdoch said.

The young Murdoch was not only a teacher, he was the school’s athletic director and the coach of all boys and girls sports. His day began at 6:30 a.m. and ended at 10:30 p.m.

“I loved it,” he said of the 16-hour school day.

After two years, Murdoch returned to the student role in the classroom at Bemidji State University where he completed his undergraduate degree in health and physical education and recreation and psychology.

He didn’t stop there and decided to apply for a graduate assistantship at Iowa State University.

He got it, and in 1969, he came to Ames to pursue a master’s in Educational Administration and eventually earned a Ph.D. in higher education.

In his move to central Iowa, Murdoch brought hockey with him.

As a graduate assistant, Murdoch shared an office with three other graduate assistants, one being Cyclone wrestling coach, Bobby Douglas. Murdoch has moved from office to office in his 29 years at ISU and now has landed in the same room in the State Gym that he and Douglas once shared.

“We laugh about those days when we were grad students,” he said.

Douglas said he and Murdoch have remained good friends ever since graduate school.

“What I remember about grad school is that I could never beat him on tests. He was always prepared, overprepared really,” Douglas said. “He’s a detail person, a high achiever and a committed Cyclone and I think that is reflected in how he’s brought the hockey team around.”

Not to be preoccupied with only one task, as a graduate student Murdoch played for the Cyclone team. But never one to have small responsibilities, he also coached the squad.

“It was challenging to be able to tell people what to do and also play while not necessarily being the best player on the team,” he said.

In 1972, Hilton Coliseum opened, and Murdoch founded the minor league hockey club. Serving only as coach, he and his players taught people how to skate. At ISU, Murdoch taught the first physical education classes in figure skating and hockey.

Only two years later, Hilton played host to the first state hockey tournament.

In 1974, Murdoch formed the ISU Ice Users Group after deciding he could not run everything by himself.

Murdoch completed his Ph.D., continued to coach the hockey team and also raised three children as a single father after he and his wife went their separate ways during the 1970s.

And of course, his three children became skaters themselves. His boys became hockey players, and his daughter took up figure skating. His kids roadtripped with him and the Cyclone team, something Murdoch said they remember fondly.

To Ames he brought hockey, and to Ames he brings hockey players from all over the world.

Murdoch’s character only polishes the shine of the strong academic and athletic possibilities for ISU hockey recruits.

Cyclone goaltender Rob Howitt said, “He’s one of the main reasons I chose to come to this school.”

Howitt heard about the ISU program through one of Murdoch’s former players, Danny Nichols, who encouraged Howitt to look into the Cyclone opportunities.

Howitt said Murdoch is an intense coach, who loves to win and provides players with chances to succeed.

“One of his greatest traits is that he is a motivator, he seems to motivate the entire team,” he said.

Although he has accomplished an enormous amount so far, he continues to chase hockey goals. Murdoch said his dream is to make Cyclone hockey a Division I sport.

His current cause is the construction of a replacement for the existing, crumbling rink.

Murdoch made hockey what it is in Ames, but he also has a life off the ice. He got married to his wife Jane in 1990, and he keeps up with his children: Sean, Kerri and Andrew. In addition, Murdoch has finished three marathons.

“I’m willing to run the extra miles at the end of the marathon to see that these goals are accomplished,” he said.

Going that extra mile is something Murdoch has been doing his entire life, and it’s unlikely he is going to stop any time soon.