Urpo Yrjö Juhani Ylönen (born 25 May 1943 in

Käkisalmi Priozersk (russian: Приозе́рск; fi, Käkisalmi; sv, Kexholm) is a town and the administrative center of Priozersky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located at the northwestern shore of Lake Ladoga, at the estuary of the northern ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

) is a goaltending coach and a retired professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

player who played in the

SM-liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding leagu ...

. He played for

TuTo TUTO Hockey (Turun Toverit) is a Finnish ice hockey team based at the Kupittaan jäähalli (capacity 2,875, inauguration in November 2006). Established in 1929, TUTO plays in Turku, Finland, and is one of two clubs in that city (the other being ...

and TPS. He was inducted into the

Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame The Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame is housed in and administered by the ('Finnish Ice Hockey Museum'), a part of the Vapriikki Museum Centre, in Tampere, Finland. The was founded in 1979 with the mission to record, document, and exhibit objects, ...

in 1988 and to the

IIHF Hall of Fame The IIHF Hall of Fame is a hall of fame operated by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). It was founded in 1997, and has resided at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto since 1998. Prior to 1997, the IIHF housed exhibits at the Interna ...

in 1997. SM-liiga has named the goalie of the year award after him; the

Urpo Ylönen trophy The Urpo Ylönen trophy is an ice hockey award given by the Finnish Liiga to the best goalie of the season. It is named for Urpo Ylönen, former goaltender and later goaltender coach. In 2019 it was awarded to Veini Vehviläinen of Kärpät. Troph ...

. After his sporting career, Ylönen has made a renowned career as the head goaltending coach of TPS. Many European experts have called Ylönen "the best goaltending coach in Europe, if not in the world". Ylönen has been producing top level goalies year after year, including

Miikka Kiprusoff Miikka Sakari Kiprusoff (; born October 26, 1976), nicknamed "Kipper", is a Finnish former professional ice hockey goaltender who played for the San Jose Sharks and Calgary Flames during his National Hockey League (NHL) career. He was selected in ...

, Fredrik Norrena,

Antero Niittymäki Antero Pertti Elias Niittymäki (; born June 18, 1980) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey goaltender who last played for TPS of the SM-liiga (Finnish elite league). He additionally played in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the P ...

, Jani Hurme, Alexander Salak and Ari Sulander.

External links

Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame page
* 1943 births Living people People from Priozersk Finnish ice hockey goaltenders Ice hockey players at the 1968 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 1976 Winter Olympics IIHF Hall of Fame inductees Olympic ice hockey players of Finland HC TPS players TuTo players {{Finland-icehockey-goaltender-stub