- Former Edmonton Investors Group chairman Cal Nichols died Saturday at 84
- He rounded up 38 investors to buy the Oilers in 1998 and block a move to Houston
- Read below for Gary Bettman’s statement and how close the franchise came to leaving
The Edmonton Oilers would probably be playing somewhere else right now if not for Cal Nichols.
He died Saturday at the age of 84. The Oilers shared the news Sunday afternoon on behalf of his family.
Gary Bettman put out a statement Sunday on a man he worked alongside through the messiest stretch in Oilers history:
“It is difficult to imagine that the Oilers would still be in Edmonton if not for Cal Nichols. During the 1990s, Nichols stepped forward repeatedly to not only save the franchise from leaving the city that adores it, but to ensure its long-term stability and success.”
Born in Paradise Hill, Sask., in 1942, Nichols ran an Esso station at 19 and was a town councillor by 23. He moved to Edmonton in 1969 and built Gasland Oil into one of Western Canada’s biggest service station chains.
Then Peter Pocklington ran into money trouble and the hockey team came up for sale.
Nichols, a season ticket holder, co-chaired the Friends of the Oilers ticket drive in 1996 that more than doubled the season ticket base to 13,000. When the club hit the market a year later, he assembled 38 investors to raise the $110 million it took to buy it, putting up $3 million of his own money and another $2 million later to draw others in, per the Oilers.
Houston businessman Leslie Alexander was waiting on the other side of that sale. The Edmonton Investors Group took control on May 5, 1998, and the Oilers stayed put.
Nichols ran the group as chairman and NHL governor for a decade before handing the keys to Daryl Katz in 2008. Katz summed him up on the way in, and the team pulled the line out again Sunday:
“If it wasn’t for Cal, the Oilers wouldn’t be in Edmonton.”
He was named to the Order of Canada in 2015 and inducted into the Alberta Business Hall of Fame. He later co-founded the Alberta Enterprise Group.
Nichols is survived by his wife Edna, children Ken and Kristine, and five grandchildren. He kept his season seats until the day he died, which is about as Edmonton as it gets.
The franchise he rescued opens training camp this week.
