For most of us, we’re lucky if we are able to pursue a passion in our lifetime. It’s a rare thing if that passion becomes a career; we know there is luck involved, but hard work and grit play into it, too. Jenny Taft, an Edina native and a 2006 graduate of Edina High School, always knew she loved sports and would someday work in the industry in some capacity. Read more about Sports Success
Now an established hockey power with 11 state high school boys’ hockey championships, Edina’s hockey program was in its infancy in the 1950s.
Edina had its first taste of success in 1955, when it entered the State High School Tournament for the first time (only to lose). But that was enough to draw about 50 boys to the newly formed Edina youth hockey association the following year.
Read more about Edina Hockey Tradition Began in 1950s
What happens when a longtime Edina resident combines two medieval Scottish sporting traditions on one backyard pond hockey rink? The answer is ice bowling—a sporting event that entertains 20 to 30 men on any given winter Wednesday night in Edina.
Jeff Ryan refers to these weekly ice bowling get-togethers as “IBOLD”: the ice bowling organization for lonely dads. “The name could also stand for, ‘I be old,’ ” jokes Ryan. The irony of the acronym stems from how IBOLD got its start. Read more about Edina Man Invents Ice Bowling, A Sport For Everyone
Edina’s top sixth-grade traveling boys basketball team won the state title in 2012, but the hoopsters left an impression on coach Deon Richardson when they set out to defend it as seventh-graders.
“They were a good team that overachieved a bit and won,” Richardson says of the sixth-grade bunch. Then “they had to be tougher because other teams were coming for them.”
They repeated in 2013, with the help of the real-world lesson Richardson preached.
Read more about Edina Basketball Association Creates Well-Rounded Kids
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