Bruce Saville was a giving soul to one and all in this city, a man whose deep pockets helped save the Edmonton Oilers in 1998 when Houston businessman Les Alexander was keen on acquiring the five-time Stanley Cup winning team and moving it south.
Saville, who was on so many different boards, helping the homeless, people in the inner city, the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation, curling teams, schools like University of Alberta and NAIT, and this storied hockey team, passed away Monday at 80 of a heart attack at the Royal Alexandra Hospital as he recovered from back surgery.
“I was so not prepared for this…he looked great the night before as we watched a baseball game, then the next morning I got a call to come back to the hospital. I’m just completely shocked. He was so looking forward to moving to the Glenrose and we were planning ahead,” said his wife Cathy King, the distinguished curler.
“Feels like the world is caving in right now. At some point I’ll have to swim back, but I’m completely crushed,”
Saville was a man for all seasons, a man who always gave back. For 11 years he was chair of the Inner City Agencies Foundation, and a member of the Edmonton Homeless Commission.
“He had such a big heart. He wanted to help so many people, all the boards he was on. He never stopped working. I was bringing him binders to the hospital. I said ‘Bruce, do you think I’m a pack rat. I have to walk four blocks with all this stuff in my back pack every day,’” Cathy said.
“He loved watching Coronation Street on TV. I said to him ‘did you watch your show?’ He said ‘no, no, I’m too busy in here,” she said.
“It’s incredible how many people Bruce helped. He was such a giving person, I guess that’s what attracted me to him. It could be anything from the inner city agencies, boxers, hockey teams, the Olympic athletes, lots of curling teams, probably 20 over the years who benefited from his help” said Cathy.
“One of the executors told me that when Bruce was in hospital, he wanted some money. So I brought him some and when I asked why he said the nurses were so good to him, he was buying them stuff from the Nutman. That is so Bruce,” said Cathy.
Saville’s love of hockey was such that not only did he help save the Oilers over 25 years ago, but he took in some kids when they first joined the team, looking for a safe haven in a new town.
“We had several hockey players live with us when they were starting out. Ales Hemsky for almost five years, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse, (Nail) Yakupov was here for a summer. Ales is so devastated with this news. Bruce was like a father to him. And Leon and Darnell both texted quickly when they heard,” said Cathy.
Bruce Saville, Cal Nichols and Jim Hole pop the cork on a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the tabling of their offer to buy the Edmonton Oilers after a news conference.
Saville was certainly one of the key players in the 38-member Edmonton Investors Group, answering the call from the EIG’s driving force Cal Nichols.
“The Investors Group was an important piece of history for young hockey fans. Those guys stepped up…and it was a different time. They weren’t doing it for the investment. They did it to keep the team here because that was important,” said one of his good friends, Oilers Hall of Famer Kevin Lowe, who later became coach and GM.
And Saville was an Oilers fan forever and ever.
“This summer, he called me to ask about Connor (McDavid). He was concerned. Like every Edmontonian he was wondering if he was going to sign. He was showing his love and passion for the game and for the team,” said Lowe.
“Bruce was loyal, encouraging…all the good things that I liked about that group. He wanted to do what was best for Edmonton,” said former GM Glen Sather, who left in 2001 for the New York Rangers but always marvelled at how the shareholders rallied together to stave off relocation.
Saville made his fortune in the computer software business, starting Saville Systems in 1992. The company provided billing solutions to tech interests with AT&T, Sprint, Deutsch and Nippon Telecom as customers. The company, with 1,700 employees was sold in 1999.
The players did their things on the ice, while Saville, one of the largest shareholders along with Jim Hole and Gary Gregg at 9.142 per cent and Nichols at eight per cent, and all the other investors who bucked up, gulped hard and did their quiet work behind the scenes.
“This was a benevolent and noble act for all of us,” Nichols has said.
It certainly was when they bought the team from the Alberta Treasury Branch, with the team in receivership from owner Peter Pocklington.
Saville, who would later start the Saville Business Group, was a huge hockey fan but as an owner he was hands-off.
“Bruce asked questions but he also encouraged me to do things. He never second-guessed any of the stuff I was doing,” said Sather, who was trying to balance the books against titans with tons of money like Detroit, Dallas and the Rangers.
“Bruce knew we were facing problems. We didn’t have enough money to keep all the players but look at that investment in the team in Edmonton, what it is today. The value of it. It’s huge,” said Sather, who saw EIG sell it to Daryl Katz for $188 million in 2008 and it’s now one of the half dozen richest franchises because of the building and the Ice District.
Saville was a beer league goalie, who never lost his love of putting on hockey’s tools of ignorance, even though he had bad knees and hips.
“He came on the ice a few times with us for practice. Let’s put it this way. He would have been a whole lot better goalie than Mark Carney,” said Lowe.
“In Bruce’s house he had this great collection of old hockey gear that he donated, I believe, to Studio 99 (Rogers Place),” said Lowe. “Bruce was from Ontario and after he established himself here, he would still fly all those guys he used to play with, pay all their expenses to play in some tournament.”
Kevin Martin, left, laughs as he poses for a photograph with Bruce Saville outside the Saville Sports Centre in Edmonton.
It wasn’t just hockey for Saville, though. He also loved curling, sponsoring World Curling Hall of Famer Kevin Martin, and so many others, including King. He was on the board of directors of the old Edmonton Eskimos for nine years and on the board of the 2001 World Athletics championship at Commonwealth Stadium.
“Bruce first got involved with our team in 1992 when our team was going to Albertville, France for the Olympics. His wife at the time was a curler at the Derrick, and Bruce curled some too,” said Martin.
“We got to be great friends and he was very involved with the new cash events in curling, the Grand Slam of Curling. I ran ideas past him, then he got the Saville Centre to fruition. It was all him. That was incredible for curling,” said Martin. “He also sponsored Cathy, of course, Ed Werenich and Anne Merklinger, both in the east.”
The Saville Sports Centre on the U of A’s south campus has 10 sheets of curling ice, 10 tennis courts, nine NBA sized basketball courts, nine volleyball courts, a big gymnastic centre and a huge fitness centre.
Martin saw Saville last Thursday in hospital and said everything seemed fine.
“We had a wonderful chat for an hour. I mean he was doing his rehab but he was sharp, sharp, sharp. His eyes were bright and active. I felt really great when I left but it wasn’t the way it turned out to be,” said Martin.
There will be a funeral for Saville at a later date.
Wherever it’s held, the facility will won’t be big enough for all of his friends.
Bruce Saville poses for a photograph in his sports room as one of his cats scampers past during an interview with Terry Jones at his home in Edmonton, Alta., on Tuesday March 4, 2008.
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