Did you know that the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) once owned the Vancouver Canucks? And that they sold the team for $175,000? It’s true.
These days the City of Vancouver owns the PNE, and if they would have held onto the team we the taxpayers might very well have become the owners of our very own NHL franchise.
This was all back in 1962, in their minor league era before they joined the NHL. The team was bought by a guy who was the mayor of Vancouver just a few years prior.
Fred Hume was mayor from 1950 until 1958 and came to be known as both "the charming mayor" and "Vancouver's nicest mayor."
He was also a generous mayor; during Hume's years in office, he took home $1 a year in pay and donated the rest of his salary to charity.
Hume lost $125,000 on the Canucks, but thanks partly to his support they were able to hang on and eventually become an NHL expansion team a few years later, in 1970.
Sadly, Vancouver's nicest mayor died in 1967, before the Canucks joined the NHL.
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