Former Edina hockey coach and Olympian Willard Ikola has died

Willard Ikola, the former Edina boys hockey coach who led the program to eight state championships and 19 state tournament appearances, died Monday evening, according to school officials.

He was 92.

When he retired in 1991, Ikola had 616 career victories and was named Minnesota’s high school hockey coach of the year six times. In the first 47 years of the Minnesota high school state hockey tournament, Ikola had been involved in 23 of them — four as a player and 19 as a coach.

Ikola became the coach at Edina in 1958. He led the program for 33 years.

“The Edina community is sending our deepest condolences to his wife, Laurie, kids and the rest of his family,” Edina school officials said in a statement.

Ikola attended Eveleth High School in St. Louis County, where he led the Golden Bears to three consecutive state championships. He became an All-American at the University of Michigan and led the Wolverines to three NCAA tournaments, including NCAA titles in 1952 and 1953.

Following college, Ikola served in the U.S. Air Force. While in the Air Force, he played on the U.S. Olympic team, which won the silver medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics. He also played on the 1957 and 1958 U.S. national teams.

Ikola is also member of the U.S. Hockey Hall Fame, the University of Michigan Hall of Honor, the National High School Sports Hall of Fame and the Edina Athletic Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Star Tribune’s Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.

A statue of Ikola is located at the entrance of Edina’s Braemar Arena on Ikola Way, a street renamed in his honor.