Lasse Heikkilä (born May 27, 1934) is a retired professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

player and coach as well as football player. Heikkilä played for the

Porin Karhut Porin may refer to: * Porin (protein), a transmembrane protein * ''Porin'' (opera), a Croatian grand opera, first performed in 1897 * Porin (music award) Porin is a Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in C ...

in the

SM-sarja SM-Sarja was the top level of ice hockey in Finland from 1928 to 1975. SM-sarja is a common abbreviation for ''Suomen mestaruussarja'', "Finnish Championship Series". There was variable number of teams playing for the Finnish championship dur ...

and coached the

Porin Ässät Porin Ässät ry is a sports club based in Pori, Finland. The club's only programs are ice hockey and esports, but it used to have an association football program. Porin Ässät ry operates an ice hockey team in the Finnish Elite League. Porin ...

in the

SM-liiga The Liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. The league comprises 16 teams from all around Finland with relegation and promotion between the Mest ...

. In football, Heikkilä represented the Porin Karhut and TPS Turku. Heikkilä's number 13 is retired by the Porin Karhut and is a

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 mission of the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame is to record, document, and exhibit ...

inductee. Heikkilä's brother, Antti, also played for Ässät and the Karhut.

Coaching career

After his playing career, Heikkilä started coaching the Karhut in 1965 and continued in the new club formed in 1967, the Porin Ässät. He served as the club's coach until 1981. After that he served as Ässät's general manager until 1994. In February 2015, Ässät honored the 50th anniversary of the Karhut 1965 championship by playing a match against Ilves in Karhut jerseys and retiring Heikkilä's number 13 in Karhut colours.

References

External links

Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame bio
1934 births Living people Porin Ässät (men's ice hockey) players Finland men's national ice hockey team coaches Finnish ice hockey coaches Finnish ice hockey defencemen Karhut Pori players Ice hockey people from Pori Porin Ässät (men's ice hockey) coaches {{Finland-icehockey-player-stub