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By Steve Cook
"Harvie! Harvie!” The chant spread throughout the Richmond Coliseum during the waning days, in early 2006, of the now defunct Richmond RiverDogs hockey team. No, the fans weren’t cheering on their favorite player. Nor were they imploring the assistance of a mythical pooka, although that might not have been such a bad idea in view of the direction in which the RiverDogs’ season was heading.
 What the fans were doing was expressing their desire for Allan Harvie to come to their rescue. Harvie, as you may know, was the founder and, for the first three years, owned the successful Richmond Renegades team that played in the East Coast Hockey League from 1990 until 2003. Allan Harvie’s showmanship, marketing acumen, and passion for the game had endeared himself to local hockey fans. And even though he had been out of the game (professionally, anyway) for several years, the less than flourishing condition of the RiverDogs evoked memories of a happier time for devotees of local professional hockey.
Chances are the chanters in the Coliseum had no confidence at the time that Mr. Harvie would come to their rescue. And, yet, that is precisely what he did. In April, 2006, he held a press conference. The Renegades were coming back!
The new Renegades began their first season in the Southern Professional Hockey League in the fall of 2006. Last year, their second season, was marked by a league record-setting twelve-game winning streak.
As we go to press, the team’s third season is set to begin. “Hockey is here to stay,” proclaims the team’s print ads. Brian Nevetral, the director of marketing, says he wanted the ads to assure fans that despite what might be happening at the Diamond, the Renegades won’t be leaving town.
I spent the good portion of a day with the effervescent Harvie just prior to the start of this season. His offices, located in the Richmond Coliseum, were filled with boxes of Renegades’ merchandise, which will be snapped up by loyal fans during the season. A conference table in the front office was covered with stacks of papers. “If it weren’t for paperwork,” Harvie laughs, “I wouldn’t have a job.”
While that’s not exactly true, at this early stage in the pre-season, there are massive amounts of paper to be tended to. Much of it involves immigration visas. With about 50% of the players coming from Canada, it falls upon Harvie to ensure that each non-U.S. citizen who makes the team has the proper certification.
Then there are the medical forms. “No one goes on the ice without getting a physical, including an oral (dental),” Harvie says. He also must tend to providing workmen’s compensation for all of his players. “Others,” he says, referring to, but not specifically mentioning a predecessor of the Renegades, “didn’t have workmen’s comp on their players.”
“How can they do that?” he asks. “It’s not just a legal matter; it’s a moral issue. How can you leave your guys (players) unprotected?”
It’s not said to impress. Harvie demonstrates a genuine concern for his players and staff. “The thing I really appreciate about him,” says the team’s director of group sales and public relations, Tracy Hynes, “is that he puts the family first. As a working mom (she has three teens), that’s extremely important.”
Hynes describes Harvie as a perfectionist. “Some people may misinterpret his passion,” she says. “But Allan will do anything for his players.”
Harvie, who hails from Prince Edward Island, Canada, and who says he first stepped on the ice at the age of two, is a former hockey player himself having played his final four years in Austria. “When I was a kid,” he says, “we played outside in the cold. My shin guards were Sears catalogs.”
For clarification, I asked if he meant they were ordered from Sears. “No,” he answers. “I tore pages from the catalog.” He says he would find discarded, broken hockey sticks and tape them up in order to be able to play. “My family had little money… we had no money.”
He recalls having to sit in the snowbank to lace up his skates. He remembers days so cold that there would be two-inch cracks in the ice. “That was fun!”
Though the kids today, Harvie feels, with the best of equipment, sleeper buses, and other amenities, are spoiled, he’s quick to point out, “Hockey players will play hurt much more than in any other sport.” He elaborates, “They (professional hockey players) don’t make as much money (as other professional athletes). They’re not as vocal about money. They just love the game.”
Allan Harvie loves the game. When asked whether he’d rather be the owner of the team, or one of the players, without hesitation he answers, “A player. I love the camaraderie. I wouldn’t even have to think about it (making the choice).” In fact, Harvie says, “the reason I own the team is to stay around the game.”
Despite his love for the camaraderie, Harvie has never ridden on the team bus to away games. Nor does he hang out in the locker room. “You can’t do that and maintain the respect of the players,” he says.
What Harvie does do is observe. He strives to be in the stands during each try-out session. I spent a morning watching with him as a group of about 25 young men attempted to prove to head coach, Brian Goudie, and to Harvie, that they deserved a spot on the roster.
With 50 years of experience, both on and off the ice, Harvie is quick to recognize who has potential and who does not. “That one,” he tells me, subtly pointing out one particular young man on the ice, who has come to town hoping to find a home with the Renegades, “can’t skate. He’s not aggressive.”
Of another try-out, Harvie says, “Now look at the difference in him. Look how he goes after the puck.”
Harvie says of this scrappy group of young men, “We don’t pamper them…not at this level. These guys are just hungry to be on a team. I want guys who want to be here.”
As Tracy Hynes tells me, Harvie is first and foremost a businessman. About ten of the players won’t make the team. Before the week is over, many of those cut will be climbing back on a Greyhound bus, either heading home or heading to parts unknown in search of another team that might be in need of their talents. And, although coach Goudie makes the hard decisions as to who stays and who goes, he’ll consult with the team owner several times over the next few days. “Brian asks for my input,” Harvie says.
Bottom line, Allan Harvie wants nothing short of a championship. “I’m not in this to make a fortune,” he says. “I want a ring on my finger. I want to give our fans a winner.”
I had one final question for Allan Harvie: “If you didn’t own the Renegades what would you be doing?”
He pauses for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he says, but then immediately realizes that, in reality, he is quite sure what he’d be doing. “I’d be looking for some hockey team, somewhere, I could be affiliated with.”
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