‘Peter Puck’ To Part With Championship Rings

By Eric Morath

Reuters

The former owner of the National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers has agreed to hand over his Stanley Cup rings in an effort to repay creditors.

Peter Pocklington and his wife, Eva, struck a deal with a bankruptcy trustee to relinquish the championship rings, Andy Warhol prints and 200 other items seized from their California home, Canwest News Service reported. The deal would sell off the items in order to repay creditors owed $19.7 million. The items were seized as part of in investigation into Pocklington’s finances following his 2008 bankruptcy filing.

Pocklington, known as “Peter Puck,” got into hot water when he only listed $2,900 in assets on that filing. Federal authorities said he failed to report two offshore accounts and property he kept in storage facilities and charged him with two counts of bankruptcy fraud. After Pocklington was charged, he had to call upon former Oilers coach Glen Sather, now the New York Rangers’ general manger, to post bail for him.

A trial on those charges is to be held in March.

Pocklington owned the Oilers during their glory years, when the team won five Stanley Cups in seven seasons. The star of most of those teams was high-scoring center Wayne Gretzky, the former coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.