Bob Tory works magic with Tri-City Americans
Bob Tory co-owner, general manager of WHL’s Tri-City Americans
“Not many years ago, some felt it wasn’t a viable franchise Now, it’s one to be respected.”
WHLC ommissioner Ron Robison
Born and raised in Edmonton, Bob Tory is coming home. At least for a few days.
The general manager and co-owner of the Tri-City Americans of the Western Hockey League will be at Rexall Place when his team meets the Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday night (7 p.m., TSN 1260).
“I still consider Edmonton home. My mom still lives there; I still own a house there,” said Tory, who has that house rented out to Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal.
“I plan on taking the kids to eat at some of Edmonton’s fun spots: Tony’s Pizza, Uncle Ed’s Ukrainian Restaurant and the Blue Willow while we’re in town.”
A success wherever he has been, what Tory, his staff and his team have done with the Tri-City Americans has been nothing short of amazing.
“It’s been quite a turnaround, that’s for sure,” said Tory, who joined the Americans in 2001 as the team’s general manager after successful stints with the Kootenay and Edmonton Ice, the Seattle Thunderbirds, the Portland Winterhawks and the Prince Albert Raiders. “The franchise was destitute, border-line broke.”
Owned at that time by Darryl Porter, now the Oil Kings’ alternate governor and vicepresident, Glen Sather and Brian Burke, average attendance fell to as low as 1,900.
Basically giving up, that ownership group wanted to move the team, which is based in Kennewick, Wash., to Chiliwack, B.C., in 2004. However, the other WHL teams and the league’s board of governors vetoed the move.
That’s when Tory stepped up.
“I took it as a challenge. I thought it would work; I wanted to give it a shot,” said Tory. “If the U.S. division of the WHL went to just four teams, it would have been terrible for the league.”
Tory, who had a five per cent ownership, convinced former NHLers Olaf Kolzig and Stu Barnes along with accountant Dennis Loman to buy the Americans.
Kolzig and Barnes had played for Tri-City. In the 1990-91 season, Spruce Grove-native Barnes put up 165 points with the Americans.
“I told them that if they bought in I would raise my percentage to 20 per cent. I said if I lost my money, my wife and I are going to be down the river, while if they lost their money, it would just be a bad investment,” said Tory, 56, a graduate of the University of Alberta.
“Stu and Olaf had both married girls from Tri-City, so they both still had a connection to the team. I never would have pulled it off without them.”
Under the new ownership, the Americans thrived. Attendance averaged 4,700 last season and the team has tallied seven 40-pluswin seasons.
“We got the team back into the community to try to win back the support of the team,” he said of an organization which was constantly being rumoured to fold.
“There’s never been a cash call. We haven’t made a ton of money, but we never lost any money, either. We paid off the loan to buy the team in six years, which was a lot faster than anyone thought possible.”
Oddly enough, it was a player, Colton Yellow Horn, that Tory described as ‘small, overweight and slow but with unbelievable vision,’ that helped turn around the franchise around.
“Colton immediately became a fan favourite,” Tory said of the player he got in a trade with the Lethbridge Hurricanes and who averaged more than a point per game in his two seasons with Tri-City.
In 2007-08, his final campaign with the Americans, Yellow Horn put up 48 goals and 97 points.
“The fans got excited, the players got excited.”
“Bob has been responsible for building that team into a championship-calibre team,” WHL Commissioner Ron Robison said to the Tri-City Herald a couple of years ago.
“Not many years ago, some felt it wasn’t a viable franchise. Now, it’s one to be respected. Bob is the architect of the franchise. Others have contributed to the success, but he has been responsible from the outset.”
It’s been like that wherever Tory has gone, which is why he was named the WHL’s executive of the year back-toback in 2006-07 and 200708 as well as celebrated as the Western Conference Executive of the Year in 2009-10.
If Tory ever writes an autobiography, it should be titled One Thing Led to Another.
Like falling dominoes, Tory parlayed success from one year to the next and from one franchise to another.
As a kid — like a bazillion other western Canadian youngsters — he played the game dreaming of one day making it to the NHL.
When that vision ended he got into coaching — teaching the game at the minor-hockey-league level for 10 years.
Coaching would soon lead elsewhere. While teaching at Kenilworth Junior High for eight years, Tory also worked as an Alberta scout for the Prince Albert Raiders — hired by Terry Simpson, the former Raiders coach who would go on to coach the New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers and Winnipeg Jets.
With the talent Tory helped bring to the team, the Raiders won the 1985 Memorial Cup, the national junior hockey championship.
Then the Winterhawks came calling, giving him the head scouting and assistant general manager positions from 1989 to 1994.
While with Portland, which were Western Conference champions in the 1992-93 season, as well as with Prince Albert, Tory was able to still live in Edmonton.
“There is just so much minor hockey in Edmonton not to mention places like Leduc, Fort Saskatchewan, St. Albert, Spruce Grove and Stony Plain.”
As for Tory, he was just getting started.
Portland led to the Seattle Thunderbirds, where he was general manager for one season, before he was wooed by Edmonton Ice for their inaugural season in 1996-97 and before the Ice moved — Tory going with them — to Kootenay three years later.
“Edmonton was a challenge,” said Tory, who served as the Ice’s assistant general manager for the team’s inaugural campaign before assuming the hockey operations boss job for 1997-98, the franchise’s final campaign in Edmonton. “It was a hard sell especially given that the Save the Oilers campaign was going on at the same time.
“We drew well when we played at Rexall, but playing the vast majority of our games at Northlands AgriCom (now a part of the expanded Edmonton Expo Centre) wasn’t a great spot. We also had parking and concession issues.”
The Ice relocated to its current home in Cranbrook, B.C., in 1998. “Even so, I hated leaving Edmonton,” said Tory, who had former Oilers forward Mike Comriein Kootenay for the 2000-01 season — in which he scored 79 points in just 37 games — and now has Comrie’s younger brothers Eric, the Americans’ outstanding goalie, and forward Ty, in Tri-City.
In 2000, the Ice made it to the Memorial Cup. Two years later, they won it.
“I wish it could have been in Edmonton. The team was just turning itself around.”
Through it all, Tory continues to love the game.
“My passion is the hockey end of things, not the business so much. I sit in the stands; I don’t sit in the owner’s box,” said Tory, who still likes to scout.
“If it ever happened, sure, I would like to work in the NHL. But I’ve got a real good situation in Tri-City. I’m my own boss, so the working conditions are great.
“I love what I’m doing.”