Player An
Eveleth native from birth, Matchefts played for his hometown
high school ice hockey team, earning three consecutive all-tournament team honors in his time there and helping
Eveleth High School win
state titles in his junior and senior years. Matchefts then moved on to
Michigan, signing up to play for the national powerhouse under the charge of
Vic Heyliger. After sitting out his
freshman season (a normal occurrence at the time) Matchefts joined the varsity team just in time for them to win the school's second
national title in
1951. The following season the Wolverines became a founding member of the
MCHL and responded by posting a second consecutive 22-win season and national title. Matchefts was named team captain for his senior season and while their win total dropped to 17, the Wolverines were invited back to the
NCAA tournament and after a scare against
Rensselaer in the semifinals, Michigan triumphed for the third straight year, making this the only three-peat in the history of the tournament. (as of 2014) With the win Matchefts joined a very exclusive club of three time NCAA champions as a player in any sport let alone men's hockey. After graduating in 1953 Matchefts joined the
US National Team for a time, playing in both the
1955 World Ice Hockey Championships and the
1956 Olympics, earning a silver medal at
Cortina d'Ampezzo before retiring as a player.
Coaching Matchefts returned to
Minnesota and spent more than a decade as the coach for both his previous high school and
Thief River Falls High School before being offered the opportunity to succeed
Bob Johnson as head coach at
Colorado College. After a decent first season Matchefts' Tigers dropped to the bottom of the conference and stayed well below .500 for the remainder of his tenure. He was out as coach after the
1970–71 season after the school denied his request for a $200 raise. A year later, Matchefts' joined his old college coach, Vic Heyliger, at
The Air Force Academy as an assistant and eventually succeeded him in
1974–75. On November 10, 2013 John Matchefts died in the city where he spent so much of his coaching career,
Colorado Springs. ==Career statistics==