He was a flamboyant and frustrating personality, whose ego helped create his celebrity in the Edmonton scene from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
Through the arrival of Wayne Gretzky, the Oilers\u2019 introduction into the National Hockey League, and owning baseball\u2019s Trappers and soccer\u2019s Drillers, he helped make Edmonton a sporting destination.<\/p>\n
His various business ventures would later ensnare him as one of the biggest villains in Edmonton by the late 1980s with the Gainers strike, the eventual sale of Gretzky, and the will-they, won\u2019t-they threats of moving the Oilers to Hamilton, Minnesota, or Houston.<\/p>\n
But his charisma was undeniable. He tried \u2013 and failed \u2013 to run for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1983, raced jet boats on the world stage, and was confronted by Mexican bandits.<\/p>\n
He also experienced one other bizarre, scary, out-of-a-movie ordeal that over the years has become largely forgotten, despite having little parallel in sports.<\/p>\n
Before committing the \u201cHockey Crime of the Century,\u201d Pocklington was held hostage<\/a> in his Edmonton home for $2 million by a desperate gunman. He was lucky to survive.<\/p>\n And no, the perpetrator wasn\u2019t a disgruntled Oilers fan.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I was bulletproof \u2014 until I was shot.\u201d<\/p>\n The front page of the Edmonton Journal on April 21, 1982.<\/p>\n Why was Peter Pocklington held hostage in 1982?<\/p>\n The year was 1982.<\/p>\n On the ice, the Oilers were victims of one of the biggest upsets in NHL history at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings, who were 48 points worse in the regular season, and even came back from a five-goal deficit in Game 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Miracle on Manchester<\/a>, as it\u2019s known, prompted Edmonton Journal columnist Terry Jones to go on a front-page tirade, infamously calling them \u201cweak-kneed wimps\u201d and \u201cchoke artists.\u201dLong story short, the season was over. Gretzky, along with Kevin Lowe<\/a>, were unexpected additions to Team Canada\u2019s squad at the World Championships in Finland, and a long offseason was just underway.<\/p>\n And on the mild spring morning of April 20, Peter Pocklington awoke at his home on 8638 Saskatchewan Drive like it was any other day. His five-year-old son had been taken to school, and he was about to head to his office. He finished his breakfast, said goodbye to his wife Eva, and walked out to the attached garage.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where a man in a black balaclava waited in the shadows and brandished a chrome-plated .357 Magnum at Pocklington.<\/p>\n Mirko Petrovic was a Yugoslavian immigrant originally in the cement business in Fort McMurray, but had fallen on hard times. He was the man behind the mask, desperate, and looking for $5 million.<\/p>\n They walked inside the house together, and Eva screamed when she saw her husband held at gunpoint by a masked man. Peter told him to uncock the gun if they wanted to talk money. Petrovic evaluated his options and complied.<\/p>\n The other people in the house were a houseguest, Joe, who became their son\u2019s babysitter, and their housekeeper, Carmen. They both were brought into the room and watched.<\/p>\n Ever smooth under pressure, Pocklington attested that he didn\u2019t have $5 million to give him, which triggered a tense negotiation, the biggest one in his life of wheeling-and-dealing. They bartered as the businessman countered with $1 million. Eventually, they\u2019d settle on $2 million so no one would get hurt.\u00a0<\/p>\n The gunman planned to kidnap Eva until Peter scrounged up the money. Petrovic told them how it was going to work, while all three of them were tied up.<\/p>\n First, he asked Eva to move the getaway vehicle, not Pocklington\u2019s Rolls-Royce or Porsche, but the more clandestine Ford Bronco (a dozen years before OJ\u2019s famous chase). She was going to be stuffed in the back under Persian rugs.<\/p>\n As she was followed to the garage by the gunman, Eva saw police. She made a break for it and ran, leading to her escape. The gunman lost his hostage and was pissed off.<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d he told Peter as he returned inside, \u201cI guess I\u2019m going to have to kill you and everybody else here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n The police being there was not a coincidence.<\/p>\n Eva was on the phone with her friend Martha when she screamed upon seeing the gunman. The abrupt end to the phone call prompted Martha to call Pocklington\u2019s secretary Irene Gunter, saying something was wrong.<\/p>\n So before Eva made her way to the garage, Gunter called the house to check in. Eva answered and blurted, \u201cClaire, I just can\u2019t make lunch. Sorry, goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n Gunter listened to her hunch and called the police, who were in the driveway when Eva began moving the vehicles around.<\/p>\n With her now safely in the hands of police, the gunman\u2019s plan was toast and Pocklington had to think fast to save his life. He concocted a new getaway scheme, selling the gunman on an escape with his private jet to an abandoned hangar in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll make sure the police deliver the $2 million, then you and I go to the plane and we\u2019ll fly into the U.S.,\u201d he said in his book. \u201cThe Americans have military airports all over the place; a lot of them are abandoned. We\u2019ll fly low and get into one, drop you off and you\u2019re gone.\u201d<\/p>\n The plan, however Jerry Bruckheimer inspired at this point, satisfied Petrovic.<\/p>\n By now it was roughly 11 a.m., and the gunman decided to take Pocklington upstairs to the third floor with him, while the other two remained downstairs (they would be released a couple hours later).<\/p>\n But the police were aware of the extent of the situation thanks to Eva\u2019s escape, and began calling the house to negotiate the terms. According to the Edmonton Journal, 15 phone calls were made by police to the house over those several hours. Some were quick, others long and detailed as they worked on logistics.<\/p>\n Getting $2 million in cash in that amount of time in Edmonton couldn\u2019t be done at the snap of a finger. Then arranging the pilots and flight was a whole other matter.<\/p>\n Police insisted Pocklington should bond with his captor to help save his skin, as the 1 p.m. deadline approached.<\/p>\n But this would be the first of many deadlines missed. Frustrations grew, not just for the soon-to-be rich criminal, but the man whose life hung in the balance.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t mind admitting I was getting a little worried,\u201d Pocklington said. \u201cI was sure this guy was manic depressive, and my only hope was to keep him calm enough and stable enough not to panic and start shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n April 22, 1982 edition of The Edmonton Journal.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, outside the house it was a circus.<\/p>\n Edmonton was experiencing the type of crime that would be the lead story of ABC\u2019s <\/a>Nightline with Ted Koppel that evening. Such a prominent person being held hostage was movie stuff, and in the world of sports, a rarity to say the least.<\/p>\n Police contained the surrounding area, closing the Groat Road Bridge, and denying any footfall access to Hawrelak Park.<\/p>\n But that didn\u2019t stop a reported crowd of more than 1,500 people gathering outside, including one shrewd businessman.<\/p>\n Joe Ewing ran a catering business and decided not to let a good tragedy go to waste, preparing sandwiches and beverages for the crowd. It wasn\u2019t Oilers gate revenue or anything, but it was a quick buck.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing better in half a day than I usually do in two days,\u201d he told The Journal. Reportedly, he made about $700 in a few hours.<\/p>\n As the situation went along, it was broadcast live into people\u2019s homes across Canada.<\/p>\n The police sneak into Pocklington\u2019s houseThe longer they waited, Pocklington admits to getting Stockholm syndrome<\/a>, a coping condition where captives develop empathy or even loyalty to their captors, so named after an attempted bank robbery in Stockholm in 1973.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew concerned for his safety,\u201d recalled Pocklington. \u201c\u2018For God\u2019s sake, get down, or they\u2019ll shoot you.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAs the hours passed, I asked if Joe\u2019s mother (Pocklington\u2019s nickname for his kidnapper) would approve of what he was doing, and I gave it to him for resorting to extortion to get his money. \u2018You could have come to me and we could have done a business deal and we probably would have made more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As new deadlines passed, the afternoon became evening. Bathroom logistics were made more embarrassing by Petrovic\u2019s \u201chands-on assistance\u201d in helping Pocklington pee into a bottle. The money was still not there, nor the private jet arrangements.<\/p>\n That was until 8:30 p.m. when the call arrived. The money was downstairs; the ride to the airport was outside.<\/p>\n What ensued next nearly killed the Oilers owner.<\/p>\n Pocklington was untied from the chair, but his hands were still bound by wire. The two of them made their way, slowly, down the stairs with the Magnum nuzzled in Pocklington\u2019s back.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the suitcase sat in the kitchen with $2 million in $20 bills.<\/p>\n But unbeknownst to them, and to the police units negotiating with the gunman over the phone all day, a four-member team of Edmonton\u2019s elite police task force had already broken into the house and were anticipating the two of them.<\/p>\n This communication breakdown later became a major snafu within policing ranks.<\/p>\n A tactical unit member burst through the door and yelled, \u201cHalt, police!\u201d firing a .22-calibre bullet from an M16. The bullet went through Pocklington and then hit the gunman, he said in his book, correcting claims made in the press that it was the other way around.<\/p>\n \u201cIt went through my arm, missing my bone by a hair,\u201d he explained afterwards. \u201cIf it had hit the bone, my arm would have been gone because the bullet would have smashed it.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, the bullet started to spin, and I still have a scar in my back from where it came out.\u201d<\/p>\n The bullet then hit Petrovic in the arm, the heavy impact knocking them both over. Pocklington claims that Joe\u2019s gun then also went off, but since the impact was so jarring, it didn\u2019t get to its intended destination.<\/p>\n If Pocklington hadn\u2019t been shot, then he surely would\u2019ve been dead. Knocked unconscious, police had their man, and the gunman suffered worse injuries than Pocklington, even requiring a skin graft on his injured arm.<\/p>\n The University of Alberta Hospital was just a short drive away from the Pocklington residence, and he was taken by ambulance. But he was fuming. The police bungled the situation in his eyes, and he became unglued on whoever would listen.<\/p>\n He would spend three days in hospital recuperating.<\/p>\n Front page April 22, 1982.<\/p>\n Psychologist: \u2018Not just a crime against him, but the entire city\u2019<\/p>\n The situation was a shock to many, and Edmontonians wanted Pocklington to know they were glad he was OK.<\/p>\n As the chief psychologist at the University Hospital put it afterwards in The Journal, \u201cThis is not just a crime against him, but the entire city.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe night I was released from hospital, with my arm still in a sling, Eva and I went to Renfrew Park to watch the Edmonton Trappers, the minor league baseball team I owned,\u201d said Pocklington. \u201cThere were 5,000 or so people at the game and, God, they gave me a standing ovation. I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n Gretzky heard about the situation overseas and couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, it was shocking to us,\u201d Gretzky recalled. \u201cBut to hear the stories of how it unfolded, only Peter Pocklington could have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the man who had carved the Oilers something fierce just a week prior in Terry Jones sounded shaken in his column the next day.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe Edmonton sports fans would want Peter Pocklington to understand, today, after the trauma he lived through \u2014 and the anxiety which will undoubtedly haunt him and his family for the rest of their lives \u2014 that to this city he\u2019s viewed as being more than just another sports franchise owner playing with his \u2018toys,\u2019\u201d wrote Jones in the Journal on April 21.<\/p>\n \u201cPeter Pocklington, we don\u2019t tell him often enough, has meant more to this city, because of the professional sports franchises he has brought us which are major factors in helping this city through the grand transition, as I\u2019ve so often put it, from being a pimple on the prairie to major league.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, how that sentiment would become more complicated over the years.<\/p>\n July 28, 1982 of The Edmonton Journal.<\/p>\n In the days that followed, people wanted to know who this brazen criminal was.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe was an exceptionally nice person,\u201d described his landlord to the press. \u201cHe was an exceptionally good tenant.\u201d Others who knew Petrovic said similar things. They would\u2019ve never expected it.<\/p>\n The case moved quickly as Petrovic pleaded guilty to charges. By July, he was slapped with a 15-year prison sentence for using \u201cterrorist tactics,\u201d as Judge Carl Rolf described it to the courtroom. Attempts to appeal were rejected.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not where the story ended, according to Pocklington.<\/p>\n The prison warden in Ponoka called him years later and said Petrovic was a model prisoner and they wanted to release him to go back to Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n As long as he was going back home, Pocklington didn\u2019t mind. However, a few days before he was set to leave, he allegedly called Pocklington.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Peter (Petrovic\u2019s nickname for Pocklington), I need $10,000 so I can buy a gravel truck and I can become gainfully employed again,\u201d Pocklington wrote in his book. He says he wired him the money.<\/p>\n A year and a half later, he heard from his former gunman for the last time.<\/p>\n Business was going well, he said. He had two trucks now.<\/p>\n Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and co-host of PreGaming and Oilersnation After Dark. He\u2019s also been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years of news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, Menzies collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4<\/a>.\u00a0PRESENTED BY CAPITAL GMC BUICK![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785419001_237_image.webp\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785419002_30_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785419002_836_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785419003_142_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785419003_34_image.webp\"\/)
Hockey fans recognize elite performance instantly, and that\u2019s exactly how Capital GMC Buick<\/a> operates. With one of the city\u2019s deepest selections of top-quality GMC and Buick vehicles and a customer experience built to win year after year, this dealership consistently leads the pack. Five current NHL players proudly drive vehicles from Capital GMC Buick, and for good reason. The store has been rated the #1 GM dealership in Canada by DealerRater for three consecutive years, is the only GM dealer in Edmonton endorsed by J.D. Power as a Dealer of Excellence, and has raised over $30,000 for the Stollery Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The day the Oilers owner was shot: Inside the forgotten 1982 hostage crisis of Peter Pocklington Love him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-835971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}