Former Team Canada head coach Andy Murray, who led Canada’s National Men’s Team to the gold medal at the IIHF World Championship in 1997, 20, has been elected to the IIHF Hall of Fame in the builders’ category as part of the Class of 2012.

The Souris, Man., native is the only non-Soviet coach since 1930 to win three gold medals at the Worlds, and will become the ninth Canadian in the builders’ category and 23rd Canadian overall to enter the IIHF Hall of Fame.

A former NHL head coach with Los Angeles and St. Louis, Murray spent two seasons as the full-time head coach of Canada’s National Men’s Team from 1996-98, which included his first gold medal at the IIHF World Championship in 1997 in Finland.

After finishing second to Sweden in both the preliminary round and final round, the Canadians topped the Swedes in the best-of-three final, winning the final two games after dropping Game 1, claiming the world championship for the second time in four years after a 33-year drought.

Murray led Canada to a sixth-place finish in 1998 before leaving Team Canada for the NHL, returning to the national team bench in 2003, once again in Finland, where his Canadian side went 8-0-1 to win the world title, capped off by Anson Carter’s overtime winner in the gold medal game against Sweden.

Four years later Murray earned his gold medal hat trick, leading Canada to a perfect 9-0 record in Moscow, Russia, just the second Canadian team to go through the IIHF World Championship without a loss or tie since the Whitby Dunlops represented Canada and won gold in 1958.

Murray will be inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame on in Helsinki, Finland, during the 2012 IIHF World Championship. He will be joined by fellow inductees Pavel Bure, Raimo Helminen, Phil Housley and Milan Novy, all of whom will enter in the players’ category.

In addition, Nike’s Kent Angus, a native of Toronto, will be awarded the Paul Loicq Award for outstanding contributions to international hockey. Angus has spent the last 15 years providing jerseys and off-ice apparel to all top division teams of the IIHF’s world championship program and the Olympics, including 49 IIHF World Championship events and four Olympic Winter Games.