Peter Pocklington
| Peter Pocklington | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Peter Hugh Pocklington November 18, 1941 Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada |
| Residence | Palm Desert, California |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | former owner of the Edmonton Oilers from 1976 to 1998; candidate for the leadership of Canada's Progressive Conservative Party in 1984; victim of a hostage-taking incident in which he was shot and wounded in 1982. |
| Spouse(s) | Eva |
Peter Hugh Pocklington (born November 18, 1941) is a Canadian entrepreneur and vocal advocate of free-market capitalism.
Peter Pocklington first earned his place in the consciousness of North American sports fans as Peter Puck—the maverick entrepreneur from oil-rich Alberta who made millions, employed thousands, bucked the political establishment, was the hostage in a famous kidnapping and, most prominently of all, as the owner of the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers during the time when they were one of the best and most dominant teams in the league. Pocklington is perhaps best known as the owner of the Oilers and as the man who traded the rights to hockey's greatest player, Wayne Gretzky, to the Los Angeles Kings.
Pocklington's life experiences were extensively documented in the 2009 biography, I'd Trade Him Again: On Gretzky, Politics And The Pursuit Of The Perfect Deal, written by Terry McConnell and J'lyn Nye. The book's title was inspired by Pocklington's ongoing conviction the Gretzky trade was the right deal at the right time and had a positive impact on all parties concerned—the Oilers, the Kings, Gretzky and the game itself.
Pocklington was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, to Basil Pocklington, an insurance executive who had immigrated from England as a young man, and his wife, Eileen (Dempsey), and grew up in London, Ontario.
The greatest influence on young Pocklington was the legendary motivational speaker Earl Nightingale and his best-selling recording, The Strangest Secret. "It literally stated, 'You become what you think about,' " Pocklington told his biographers. He says he still has the record today.
One of his earliest business ventures was to find old cars on the farms around his maternal grandparents' home in Carberry, Manitoba, buy them for $25, then ship them to Ontario by train, where he sold them for upwards of $500. Because of the West's dry, cold climate, the cars, many of them 25 to 40 years old, were in better shape than comparable vehicles that had been driven on Ontario's salted roads.
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