Former Gophers hockey player Len Lilyholm among 3 killed in Iowa crash

Lilyholm graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1966.

Len Lilyholm / Facebook

Former Gophers hockey player Len Lilyholm was one of three people killed in a head-on crash on Interstate 35 in northern Iowa on Saturday morning. He was 83 years old.

According to Iowa news station KCCI, a southbound 2014 Volkswagen Eos driven by Lilyholm crossed the median and was heading the wrong way in the northbound lanes of I-35 when it collided head-on with a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado.

Lilyholm and his wife, 82-year-old Carol Lilyholm, were killed in the crash, as was the driver of the Chevy, identified as 41-year-old Bradley Vonnahme of Coon Rapids, Iowa. Three others people were injured.

The Lilyholms were living in Palm Beach, Florida, at the time of their deaths.

Lilyholm played for Robbinsdale High School before joining the Gophers hockey program in 1959. He played three seasons at Minnesota and was selected for the U.S. National Team, for which he played for four seasons. He was a member of the 1968 U.S. Olympic team that finished sixth at the Grenoble, France winter games.

After the the national team, he played several seasons of minor league hockey in the USHL with the Rochester Mustangs, and also played a few seasons in Austria. He played 77 total games with the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association, before ending his career in 1973-74 with the Suncoast Suns of the Southern Hockey League.

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