OHL club announces ownership changes
Jul 10, 2008 - 10:38 AM
By Shawn Cayley
OSHAWA -- The other shoe has dropped on the changes within the ownership of the Oshawa Generals.
The first one dropped Wednesday when former co-owner John Davies told This Week in an e-mail that he had entered into an agreement to sell his shares in the club to Rocco Tullio, who joined Davies as a partner in September 2007.
Thursday morning the club announced that former NHLer Adam Graves and current Florida Panthers head coach Peter DeBoer will be joining the ownership group, in a deal that is still pending approval from the Ontario Hockey League Board of Governors.
In a press release issued by the club, Tullio said: “I’m thrilled that both Adam and Peter, who have been longtime friends of mine, are now partners. To own one of the most storied franchises in all of the CHL, along with great family and friends, is a dream come true for me.”
The 40-year-old Graves retired from the National Hockey League in 2003 after 16 seasons in the league and two Stanley Cups. Meanwhile DeBoer, also 40, recently left his post as coach and general manager of the Kitchener Rangers to become the coach of the Panthers.
Graves and DeBoer were teammates in the OHL during the late 1980s with the Windsor Compuware Spitifires organization.
As for Tullio, his takeover and additions to the ownership is yet another transaction to be added to the list of changes within the club that he has had a hand in since purchasing half of Davies’s 86 per cent shares last fall.
In January, then-president Trish Campbell was fired, and a lawsuit on her behalf is still ongoing . The club removed Brad Selwood as head coach in February before ultimately giving him the boot as GM in the spring after nearly the entire scouting staff had either resigned or been fired.
Davies’s exit closes his four-year tenure with the club after he purchased it from longtime owner John Humphreys.
For more on this developing story read Friday’s This Week newspapers and check back at newsdurhamregion.com.
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