` . . . YOU JUST WANT A HUG' LIFE APART HASN'T BEEN EASY FOR KINGS COACH AND HIS FAMILY.

Byline: Matt McHale Staff Writer

DETROIT - Andy Murray had great news.

After a life as a coaching gypsy, with frayed passports stamped from Nashville to Nagano, Japan, Murray gathered his family last June to say he had been offered the head job of the Los Angeles Kings.

Champagne? Ice cream and cake? How about some bronzed hockey skates?

How about, ``We are not going to Los Angeles.''

It seemed that after 20 years of room service, the Murrays finally had found a home. The only problem? It was one stop short of the big time.

His three children had grown up in Florida, Switzerland and Calgary. They saw the world from the back of a Zamboni but barely saw their father for two years while he coached the Canadian National team. When they arrived in Faribault, Minn., and a hockey-mad boarding school named Shattuck-St. Mary's, everyone fell in love.

So while the revitalized Kings prepared this week for Thursday's playoff opener against the Detroit Red Wings, Murray's biggest fans are 2,000 miles away. He hasn't seen his wife, Ruth, and youngest son Jordy since early February. His oldest son, Brady, came last month with his daughter Sarah and got to work out with the team.

Ask anyone on the Kings how they got to this point after missing the postseason five of the previous six years and they point to the 48-year- old Murray, his attention to detail and his obsession with accountability.

But as the NHL steps on to its biggest stage this week, it's easy to forget he is somebody's dad.

``It works because we're always talking, maybe four or five times a day on the phone,'' Ruth Murray said Tuesday as she was getting Jordy ready for a hockey tournament. ``Even if it is only for five minutes at a time. It is the most important thing. Sometimes we talk too much. The phone will ring as we're rushing out the door.

``We send faxes, use cell phones, and we're going to get E-mail. But it isn't easy. Sometimes you just want a hug.''

Murray, a career NHL assistant who coached a year at Shattuck to get reacquainted with his family, says the distance is the hardest part of the job.

Murray lives in Hermosa Beach but rarely strays from his big-screen TV and satellite dish. There aren't many who watch eight hockey games at once on their night off and even fewer who can match his intensity.

Murray has willed his team to withstand lengthy injuries to top players Luc Robitaille, Ziggy Palffy, Jozef Stumpel and Stephane Fiset. He has helped rebuild an organization often ignored by the city of Los Angeles until playoff time.

Murray spent much of Monday planning strategy with his assistants. He also checked the final edit of a motivational tape he planned to show the players later that night at a team dinner. At the beginning of an interview, Murray asks if it is OK to keep writing while he talks about the season.

Then he stops to pull out a faxed piece of paper diagramming a play to use against Detroit. There are a few too many players on the ice and its hard to tell the x's from the o's. But at the bottom it said, ``Love, Jordy.''

``Scotty Bowman doesn't stand a chance,'' he said with a grin.

Murray led the Kings to 94 points this season, fourth best in franchise history.

A year ago, he was leading Shattuck to the national championship in his only year as coach.

``It's hard being away from your family, and I live here,'' Kings assistant Ray Bennett said. ``But I don't know if I've met anybody more focused on a job than Andy. During (this season's national tournament in which Shattuck lost in the semifinals), there was a couple of times he turned to me and said, `That's where a father should be.' But he never let on to anybody. He was so tuned in to getting us into the playoffs.''

RUTH MURRAY understands, and said she knew what she was getting into.

Ruth and Andy met in 1972 when he was a physical education instructor at a school outside Winnipeg and she was a student teacher. He had taught several of her eight brothers and sisters. Word on his fast-pitch softball team was Murray was a little high strung, but she didn't seem to mind.

During one of his first coaching jobs, Murray won a national championship at Brandon University in Manitoba. He also taught sports management and psychology at night and ran his father's auto dealership during the day.

Later, he not only coached in Europe, he learned German, French and Italian.

There were minor-league jobs and assistant positions with the Winnipeg Jets, Minnesota North Stars and Philadelphia Flyers. He took the Canadian National team to an Olympic gold medal in 1998.

Team Canada was based in Calgary and prepared with an 82-game schedule. Eighty one of those were on the road, including several months in Europe.

Even at Shattuck, he moonlighted as the general manager of a team in Germany. After Shattuck played on Saturday afternoons, Murray would hop a plane to Berlin, then return Monday afternoon for practice.

Despite the frequent-flyer miles, the job at Shattuck offered a chance to get off the treadmill. Murray told the family and the school he would only leave for an NHL head coaching job. Even when he was offered an associate head coaching job in Vancouver, Murray turned it down.

``He can be a little controlling,'' Ruth Murray said with a laugh. ``Of course, you want him there, but when he wasn't for so long, we learned to get along without him. That took some adjusting.''

Murray gushes about his Shattuck experience, but realizes how difficult it was to rejoin the family.

``The way my wife kept things together really is the story here,'' he said. ``When you come back after not being around, you want to direct things. They look at you like `everything is fine.' But she is absolutely amazing. I can't imagine any of this without her.''

A year later, Murray is back on the road, replacing Larry Robinson. Ruth said her husband wasn't sure he'd ever get a head coaching job because he wasn't a former player and didn't have a marquee name.

But she remembers how proud she felt at the introductory news conference last summer. Brady Murray said he was a little surprised how good his father was on his feet.

Ruth Murray is hoping to bring the kids to Los Angeles for some of the later first-round games. As a coach's wife, she says it saddens her that she hasn't bonded with the players' wives or gotten to know many of the front-office personnel.

The family will split time this summer between Minnesota and Hermosa Beach. Brady will work out at the team's training facility in El Segundo and play in Europe. But he also will skip soccer this summer, a big decision in a busy household that was made without his father's advice.

``I wish we could see him more,'' Ruth Murray said. ``I haven't seen him in so long. But you do what you have to do.''

AT A GLANCE

Stanley Cup playoffs

Kings at Detroit

Game 1

Thursday,, 4:30 p.m.

TV: Fox Sports Net

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- color) For Kings coach Andy Murray, life in the NHL has meant great personal sacrifice.

(2) Kings players look on during a recent game with Dallas. L.A. begins first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs Thursday in Detroit.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

Box:

(1) At a glance (see text)

(2) Playoff schedule