SAVE $5
SASKATOONEXPRESS - March 17-23, 2014 - Page 1
NEW VEHICLE WARRANTY APPROVED • Open Late
On Any Oil Change Package
• Open 7 Days a Week • Warranty Approved Services • No Appointment Necessary
Valid at all Saskatoon locations. Starting at $52.99 with coupon for most vehicles Plus taxes and enviro charge. Present coupon. Not valid with any other discounts. Exp. March 31, 2014
3330 8th St. E. • 705 22nd St. W. • 1204 Central Ave. • 802 Circle Dr. E. • 519 Nelson Road
Volume 11, Issue 10, Week of March 17, 2014
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Friends of the Bowl Greg Yuel is spearheading the drive to raise $11 million for renovations at Gordie Howe Bowl (Photo by Steve Gibb/www.GibbArt.com)
Former Hilltop chairs $11-million park renovation
A
s a Saskatoon Hilltop junior football player from 1987 through 1991, Greg Yuel learned a lot of lessons about life. “I think of tenacity, dedication, application to the cause, the team work,” said Yuel, who joined the Hilltops as an inside and outside linebacker. He then shifted to tight end and slotback. He played special teams most of the time. “Even when I look back on the Canadian championship we won in 1991, it was all about team work. People We had captains that really pulled that team together. No superstars, just great team players who matured quickly, even when we were looking at a different playbook every week. You learned to
NED POWERS
do your job, trust the guys beside you, and when you were on special teams, you went onto the field with momentum and ferocity,” said Yuel. After working for a trucking firm in Alberta briefly, Yuel came back to Saskatoon and is now the president and CEO of PIC Investment Group Inc. And after coaching some high-school football with Brian Thorstad, Dean Newton and David Earl, and being lured to the Hilltop board of directors by Mark Andrews, Yuel is currently a man on a special mission. He is campaign chair of Friends of the Bowl, a foundation aiming to raise $11 million towards a major renovation of Gordon Howe Bowl. The football field opened in 1960 and has been badly in need of repairs for many years. The initial push has raised $4 million. That is enough to get artificial turf of the same quality as the Canadian Football League’s new surface at Investors Park, home of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. By the end of April, Wright Construction will begin tearing up the natural grass
and hopes to have the new turf installed for a home opener in early September. Yuel has won a Canadian title at Howe Bowl. He has endured some of the playoffs in mud, snow and cold. But he has story to tell about Edmonton’s Clarke Stadium, where one day he played the game of his life. “We were playing the Edmonton Wildcats in the 1989 season,” recalled Yuel. “I was basically a backup on both offence and defence. One of our linebackers goes down early, and head coach Dave Hardy sends me into the game. One of our tight ends gets hurt and offensive coach Kelly Bowers sends me in. I was playing on both sides of the ball, playing on special teams, and for one great afternoon I was almost a 60-minute man. “There were about five to seven minutes left in the game when Dave called me over and told me to go and join Kelly’s offence for a while. Neither had realized I was already doing both. Thankfully they told me to just keep doing what
I was doing. The best game of my football life, no doubt.” Now the values of team work are coming into play again with Friends of the Bowl. The drive was launched by a City of Saskatoon feasibility study that quickly recognized the shortcomings of the aging football park. By November 2012, Friends of the Bowl Foundation and the City had reached a memorandum of understanding. It was the go-ahead for the major renovation. At the time, Cary Humphrey, manager of leisure services for Saskatoon, said, “The formation of the Friends of the Bowl Foundation follows an emerging trend in the ways that municipalities are doing business. The City has reached out to the key players to work together and innovatively fundraise for this aging facility to help address an important community need.” In addition to turf, the funds already announced will purchase new lighting, a score clock and a sound system. (Continued on page 6)