Sportspreneurs: Tackling a new playing field

If you had met Len Barrie and Joel Savage when they both played for the Victoria Cougars back in the mid-eighties and asked them what they planned to do once their playing days were over, they wouldn’t have given you a very good answer. After all, the mountain you have to climb to get from junior hockey to the NHL is so steep and treacherous that there isn’t much time to think about what things will look like once you get to the other side. The two scrappy forwards would likely have given you a vague description of what Left: Len Barrie started Bear Mountain Resort to “haunt”
his old golf club (Courtesy of Bear Mountain Resort);
Right: Joel Savage became a partner in Wildstone resort
and golf community after a career in the NHL
(Courtesy of Wildstone)most young athletes think retirement looks like: sitting around all day with your buddies and playing golf.

Fast forward two decades later and golf is a big part of Barrie and Savage’s post-hockey life. But instead of poring over their scorecards at the clubhouse bar as they once imagined, they now spend their days poring over blueprints and business plans as they develop two of B.C.’s largest golf resorts. Savage’s Havaday Development is building Wildstone, a 900-acre golf property outside Cranbrook that will feature 2,800 residential units and two Gary Player-designed golf courses that overlook the Rockies. Barrie is CEO of Bear Mountain, a sprawling 1,500–acre resort near Victoria that features two golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, one hotel with another planned for the future, five restaurants and 5,000 residences. “People always ask me, ‘Do you miss playing hockey?’” says Barrie. “I say, ‘I haven’t had time. I‘ve been working.’”

Barrie and Savage are part of a new generation of “sportspreneurs”, ex-athletes who have gone on to build thriving businesses. Over the decades, many ex-jocks have parlayed sports success into impressive corporate careers. Former Montreal Canadiens legend Serge Savard is a partner in a successful real estate firm in Montreal. Former BC Lion Noah Cantor owns Vera’s Burger Shack, a successful burger franchise that now boasts six locations throughout the Lower Mainland. Then there’s former Maple Leafs defenceman Tim Horton, who opened a chain of doughnut shops that you may be familiar with.

After journeymen hockey careers that spanned more than a decade, Barrie and Savage both decided to go into the golf business. Savage, who played professionally in Europe after a brief stint in the NHL, became interested in building Wildstone through his brother Jay and business partner John Sheehan. Barrie got into the golf business out of a grudge. After retiring from the Florida Panthers in 2001, Barrie retreated to his property near Victoria, which was adjacent to a golf club that he belonged to. After accidentally cutting down some trees that were on the golf course’s property, the club rescinded Barrie’s membership. Rather than make amends, Barrie decided to start his own golf course, one that ended up being the largest residential-resort-commercial construction project being built in Canada today. “It’s like when you get traded from your team,” says Barrie. “When I got kicked out of the golf club, I was angry and wanted to come back and haunt my old club.”

The homes at Savage’s Wildstone community will
complement the environment (Courtesy of Wildstone)The scope of these massive projects may have initially intimidated Barrie and Savage, who had no experience in land development or construction, but they say after surviving the intensely competitive world of hockey, where they had to compete against thousands of players to keep a roster spot, the high-stakes game of real estate didn’t seem quite so daunting. Besides, if their years on the ice taught them anything, it was not to back down from a challenge.

In addition to confidence and determination, sports also taught Barrie and Savage the importance of co-operation and teambuilding. “There’s no question that we jumped into the deep end of the pool,” says Savage of his and Barrie’s projects. “What we’re doing is making sure we surround ourselves with the right people. That’s the bottom line. Where you don’t have the expertise, you go find it. It goes back to the whole team environment and recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, and making sure you get the right people around you who can buy into the common goal and achieve it.”

Their years in hockey also helped them learn the value of important life skills such as self-discipline, hard work and perseverance. Savage believes that those characteristics stem from being passionate about whatever you’re doing. “I had a passion for hockey since a young age,” he says. “Once you’re finished your career, it’s challenging to find that next thing. Once you find it, I think that the passion that you had towards sports is something that is going to make you successful in whatever endeavour you embark upon afterwards.”

Of course, that passion comes at a price. Barrie, who started Bear Mountain so he could retire to the golf course, is now so busy that he barely has time to hit the links. “I used to be a good golfer before I started working here,” he says with a laugh. “I went from a six to a fourteen handicap. I started this project because I wanted to play golf, but now I only play once a week.”

The stunning beauty at Bear Mountain’s 15th green (Courtesy of Bear Mountain Resort)