Harry Ornest (June 30, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was a sports entrepreneur who once owned the

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the ...

of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL) and the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

of the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

(CFL). He also played minor league baseball, was a linesman in the NHL, and a referee in the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

.http://www.canoe.ca/HockeyStLouisArchive/jul21_har.html

Biography

Ornest was born in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, the son of immigrants from Eastern Europe. He is of Jewish descent. He made his fortune in vending machines. In 1978 he founded the minor league baseball franchise, the

Vancouver Canadians The Vancouver Canadians are a Minor League Baseball team located in Vancouver, British Columbia. They are members of the Northwest League and are affiliated with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Canadians play their home games at Nat Bailey Stadiu ...

, which played in the Pacific Coast League. He purchased a majority of the assets of Sick's Stadium in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

for $60,000 to use in the new team's ballpark,

Nat Bailey Stadium Nat Bailey Stadium, also known as The Nat, is a baseball stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is home to the Vancouver Canadians of the Northwest League High-A. Stadium history The stadium is located in Hillcrest Park immediately north-eas ...

. Ornest was the owner of the St. Louis Blues from 1983 to 1986. Ornest proved to be the savior for a city that was on the verge of losing their team. Although the Blues maintained consistency in making the Stanley Cup playoffs since 1980, financial troubles had racked the team (owned by

Ralston Purina Ralston Purina Company was a St. Louis, Missouri,–based American conglomerate with substantial holdings in animal feed, food, pet food, consumer products, and entertainment. On December 12, 2001, it merged with Swiss food-giant Nestlé's Fr ...

, a pet food giant based in the city). They lost nearly $2 million a year for six straight years before Ralston wanted to re-focus their attention back to profits. The only thing that would stand between them moving to

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as th ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

ended up being the Board of Governors, who rejected an attempt to move the gutted team (which fired 60% of their staff) there. Ralston and the NHL soon sued each other and each came up with ultimatums involving dissolving the assets of the team. August 6 was the deadline before the NHL would have held a dispersal draft. Days before the deadline, Ornest (who had aspired to buy the team since and a group of city-based investors made a bid for the team, and on July 27, the league approved the bid. He would run the team with a shoestring budget while utilizing deferred salaries to meet costs, which included having less players on contract than other teams and trading players when dealing with salary pinching; Mike Liut was the most notable case of this, as he was traded in the middle of the 1984-85 season to the

Hartford Whalers The Hartford Whalers were a professional ice hockey team based for most of its existence in Hartford, Connecticut. The club played in the World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 until 1979, and in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1979 to ...

despite the Blues leading the division. When he owned the Blues, Ornest changed their arena's name from the Checkerdome back to the St. Louis Arena. In his three years of ownership, the team went 106-106-28 while reaching the postseason thrice, which included making the Campbell Conference Finals in 1986, which they would not do again until 2001. In 1986, he sold the team to Missouri native

Mike Shanahan Michael Edward Shanahan (born August 24, 1952) is a former American football coach, best known as the head coach of the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL) from 1995 to 2008. During his fourteen seasons with the Broncos, he le ...

while selling the Arena to the city of St. Louis (mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl had approached Shanahan about becoming an owner). He owned the Toronto Argonauts from 1988 to 1991.

References

External links

Baseball ReferenceLos Angeles Times: obituary
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ornest, Harry 1923 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople Businesspeople from Edmonton National Hockey League executives St. Louis Blues owners Toronto Argonauts owners Canadian emigrants to the United States