Family, friends mourning loss of Fowlie
Neil could never say no to a volunteer position.
— Rick Turgeon
As an accountant with a steel-trap memory, Neil Fowlie had a borderline genius mind he used to figure out shortcut solutions to problems.
His abilities as a troubleshooter, combined with his love for hockey – as a player, fan and administrator – his devotion to his family and his seeming inability to say no to volunteer duty to make Prince George a better place to live have forever cemented Fowlie’s legacy.
He died June 28 in Chilliwack after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 69.
When the Prince George Recreational Hockey League needed someone to help run the league as a director and president, Fowlie got involved. He knew his ideas and his knack for scheduling would make playing the game that much more fun for the hundreds of players who didn’t quite realize their NHL dreams.
When the Peace Cariboo Junior Hockey League needed a commissioner to call the shots and provide stability to a league that kept junior hockey players close to home and gave local fans a team to rally behind, Fowlie stuck up his hand.
And when that league more than doubled in size with the addition of four junior B teams from the Kootenays International Hockey League and a team from Alberta in Grande Prairie to become the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League, Fowlie took on that job without pay for two more seasons. He just couldn’t say no.
“His forte was scheduling (a task he han- dled at first without a computer) and he had a level head so that helped with discipline issues,” said Rick Turgeon, Fowlie’s partner for five years at Fowlie and Co. “He was just contacted by people in hockey circles who knew him and they asked him and Neil could never say no to a volunteer position.”
Fowlie was a founding director of the rec league and he used to schedule his own team’s late-night games so they would follow right after Cougar home games and he and Turgeon wouldn’t have to leave the rink.
Fowlie was born in Saskatchewan and raised on a farm near Regina with his three sisters and a brother, where he developed his work ethic, his sense of fairness, his generous nature and his love for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Playing hockey on frozen ponds as a kid, he became an above-average rep team player who lacked the size needed to crack the junior ranks but his skills served him well for decades on rec hockey rinks in Prince George. Never the fastest player on the ice, he had a habit of playing tricks with the puck on his stick that left opponents fishing for air.
Fowlie earned his accountancy degree in Saskatoon at the University of Saskatchewan and moved with his young family in 1971 to Prince George, where he articled at Winsper Higgins. He moved on to Deloitte for a few years, then opened his own firm, Fowlie and Company, which he ran until he moved to Chilliwack with his wife Lorie in 2016.
The city’s rec hockey league was growing rapidly in the mid-1970s when Fowlie joined the executive as a founding director. His good friend Del Laverdure, the former Citizen publisher and computer whiz who at the time was teaching computer courses at the College of New Caledonia, served as statistician. Before long, Fowlie was running the league as president and he was perfect for the job. He had a knack for defusing arguments and finding common ground to sort out differences and he was asked to take over as commissioner of the Peace Cariboo League, which then included the Prince George Spruce Kings.
In his second season at the helm of the RMJHL it was a nine-team league when Fowlie announced in January 1993 his intention to resign because of the increasing commitment the job required and the need to devote more of his time to his own business.
—
—
He was long considered one of the city’s top accountants and in 1993 was awarded the Institute of Chartered Accountants of B.C. award for his community service. His clients stuck with him and his business thrived because he had exceptional people skills and he treated them well, always willing to spend time talking to them about their finances or just life in general.
Service clubs were a big part of Fowlie’s life in Prince George and he joined the Gyro Club of Prince George and the Yellowhead Rotary Club as treasurer which got him involved in community fundraising projects. That led to a seven-year commitment in the 1980s and early 1990s as a commissioner with the Prince George Parks and Recreation Department. When the city was deciding on a location for the Aquatic Centre, long before the 1993 referendum that led to construction of the new pool and Prince George Multiplex (now CN Centre), Fowlie served on the Aquatic Centre building committee and decided it would serve the city best if it was built in a central location halfway between the Hart and College Heights subdivisions. He also worked with former Prince George Golf and Curling Club president BettyJune Gair to sort out the land swap involving the golf club and Pine Centre Mall in the mid-1990s which led to the purchase of the city land which became the Rotary Soccer Fields.
Fowlie was healthy right up to the time he got sick. He played hockey until a couple years before he retired and it did take a toll on his body, resulting in a broken collarbone, a knee replacement and even a broken neck, which happened in his late 20s when he hit the boards headfirst. That left him in severe pain and the young father of two was thankful for that. It meant he wasn’t paralyzed.
“The guy was very dedicated to hockey in this town and not just to the rec league,” said current P.G. Rec Hockey League president Al Hines. “He ran the Rocky Mountain league and yet stayed on with us as the league treasurer and kept the rec league going until he moved away two years ago.”
Twelve years ago, Fowlie devised the rec league’s aggressive points system, which keeps a running tally on the number of stick penalties and misconducts players incur and the number of player suspensions dropped dramatically.
“Neil was very fair with people,” said Hines. “There would be times in hockey where guys fly off the handle and you want to hang the guy by the highest tree and Neil was always the voice of reason. In that way he mentored all of us on the executive. He was a real visionary and he brought the league to where it is today with 52 teams now.”
In the warm-weather months, Fowlie ditched his hockey gear and got out the golf clubs. He was a longtime member of the Prince George Golf and Curling Club and would often show up at the last minute, just before the rest of his foursome – Laverdure, Steve Patacki and Dave Lloyd – were about to tee off. Everything was done on “Neil time,” and he never sweated about being a bit late for anything. Known for his wild tee shots that might land on an adjacent fairway, Fowlie frequently made great recoveries to get on the green and he was an excellent putter, using a one-handed stroke.
Said Patacki, who plans to nominate Fowlie for a place in the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame under the builders category: “I was kind of mean to him and I said to him, “You know Neil, the best way to hit a ball is to call ‘Fowlie.’ This way, everyone from hole number 1 to 18 can duck. When he hit the golf ball he could hit it a long way but sometimes it was two fairways over.”
Fowlie never seemed to raise his voice. He was a calming influence, diplomatic at all times and was quick to defend Prince George whenever he heard people dissing the city. He cherished his friendships and maintained close ties with dozens of his high school/university buddies from Regina, dubbed the Expo ’67 Guys. They’ve stayed in touch and have met regularly in those 50 years and Fowlie is the first of the group to pass away.
Known for his dry sense of humour and his smirk, Fowlie never lost it, even when he knew the end was near.
Said wife Lorie: “The pastor came in less than a week before (he died) and there was a roomful of people and he asked to have a few minutes alone with Neil and said, ‘I’m asking you to leave, but I’m staying,’ and Neil goes, ‘But I’m leaving.’”
Fowlie is survived by Lorie, children Michelle, Michael (Rina) and their mother Josie; James (Alexa), Erin (Joel), and Scott (Shelley) and their mother Dianne; siblings Joan, Merle, Diane and Ross; and also many grandchildren and nieces and nephews.
A celebration of Fowlie’s life will be held at the Westwood Mennonite Brethren Church sometime in August. Some of his friends will gather at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club Tuesday at noon.