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Here's something you should know about Rod Bryden. Once, when he was 14, as the last of six sons still at home on a farm in New Brunswick, he made a crucial mistake. His mother, Kathleen, had asked him to pick up some ground beef for dinner on his way home from school. But he forgot. His mother was disappointed. She was counting on him, after all. So he picked up a shotgun from a cupboard, stepped outside, and, hey, guess what, he bagged a pheasant. Just like that, and in the fading light of the afternoon. Well, his mother was ecstatic. He had exceeded expectation: pheasant instead of ground beef. He placed the shotgun back in the cupboard. What's not known is whether he blew smoke from its muzzle as he did so.

There is a secrecy to the cityscape of Ottawa. Everything looks so ordered that it appears as if nothing is happening. Those toy-like Parliament Buildings, the cultural institutions as carefully constructed as press releases, the embassies and monuments, together produce a kind of Potemkin majesty.

But behind the façade, this is a town with fervid, big-city ambitions, with everyone carefully watching the success and failure of everyone else. Two worlds-government and business-intersect here, making rich contrasts. The politicians spend all their time butting heads as noisily as possible. In business, everyone is polite. Entrepreneurs work in their glass silos out on the perimeter of the city, dreaming up their plans for global success. They don't like to publicly discuss the misfortunes of their colleagues. Yet for all their discretion, they are colourful, hothouse personalities, their fortunes and characters flowering in the fertile ground of a tech industry seeded by the state. There's Jozef Straus with his beret, Michael Cowpland with his blonde, and Terry Matthews, the World's Wealthiest Welshman.

Part of this crowd, yet standing apart from it, is Rod Bryden, another of the entrepreneurial cohort that came of age in the '70s and '80s, with his company Systemhouse Ltd. Unlike the rest of his greying colleagues, Bryden isn't tooling around in a Spitfire or a sports car. And the truth is, he's fallen behind in the pack-once the brightest kid in class, he's still looking, at age 62, for a big, lasting success. Then again, he may not be motivated by something as simple as money.

The surroundings where we meet on an early February day are modest. The offices of World Heart Corporation, a company of Bryden's that specializes in heart-assist pumps, are bunker-like: one floor, square and colourless. He's president here; but more famously, he is majority owner of the Ottawa Senators. He's getting ready to announce today that his $175-million bid to buy back the Senators out of bankruptcy protection is going ahead.

Bryden seems unstoppable. Phone calls about last-minute details on the deal interrupt the interview. He gets up, excuses himself to take a call in another office, returns with a small, satisfied smile on his face and resumes his position, sitting formally, hands clasped in front of him. Fit and sharp in a conservative brown suit, he is a master of control, like a good politician, speaking in precisely articulated stretches of thought, sentences like trains with many cars, all securely linked, swiftly moving in the same determined direction.

His dealmaking secret is this: "Usually in big matters if you properly understand what each person's responsibility or self-interest is, and you can match that, then they'll co-operate." He explains the long list of considerations he has to manage in the Senators deal: the publicity, how he makes use of the media to help galvanize support, timing issues-things must be resolved before another season, and its costs, start up again-tax implications, the requirements of the banks, his sidebar $200-million deal to refinance the Corel Centre. "A simple transaction simplistically sounds simple, and they seldom are," he says. It's a garbled statement that could only be made by someone who holds the complexity of his own invention in his mind and wants to reduce it for his audience. What Bryden means is that he really is after the same result as everyone else-to have the team, the best in the NHL, stay in Ottawa-but that the means is not as simple as the end. Says his brother, Senator John Bryden, "It's in his nature to solve a problem."

It's clear that this is not one of those jock vanity projects. Bryden is not even much of a hockey nut. (His own sports are tennis, skiing and golf.) Listening to him, it all feels like some extraordinary intellectual experiment in which he weighs all the variables-the media, the possible intervention of government, the leverage of an upsurge in ticket sales and enthusiasm from a possible Stanley Cup, the lure of tax breaks to a wide group of investors-then tests them to the extreme, and finally comes up with a formula to bring about the desired result. When Rod Bryden fixes his gaze on you and starts explaining, it all makes sense, and you believe.

That was then. It would all come to a screeching halt two weeks later, when Bryden's partner, Nelson Peltz, the American owner of Arby's restaurant chain, would withdraw, reportedly over the accounting treatment of the deal. "I was surprised," a chastened Bryden admits on the phone, in the aftermath of the deal's demise. "I did not consider that to be a risk," he says, adding that "two of the world's largest accounting firms expressed total confidence in the accounting treatment."

That the deal fell apart over bookkeeping details left more than a few Ottawans scratching their heads. Since 1990, when he took over the infant franchise, Bryden may have lacked for many things-cash, bums in seats at the Corel Centre, a couple of lucky breaks-but he was always able to pull another numbers rabbit out of his hat. There was the time in the late '90s he converted more than $300 million worth of club and arena loans into distressed shares, the bailout he finessed (briefly) out of then-industry minister John Manley, the complex tax-shelter scheme mounted not once but twice. He never gave up. Apart from civic duty, he got involved, he says, because it seemed like a good investment, not a great one-a reasonable assessment. He couldn't have known that players' salaries would go through the roof, that the Canadian dollar would dip, that the Ontario government would oh-by-the-way demand that the Corel Centre pay $21 million for highway improvements. Pretty well everyone in Ottawa has an opinion on this odyssey.

"He's done the best he could with the hand that he was dealt. Nobody else could have done it better," says Tom McDougall, Bryden's lawyer. "The Corel Centre would never have been built but for the tenacity and brainpower of Rod Bryden."

"He is the spider at the centre of a web," counters an Ottawa insider, just after Bryden's announcement that February day. "The whole deal is frustratingly opaque." Bryden had his own metaphor for his final Senators model: "This is a financial architectural marvel, not a marvel as in a work of art, but like one of those marvelous flying machines with arms sticking out everywhere."

Of course, it only took one missed connection for the web-for the flying machine-to come apart.

In 1990, the late Gordon Henderson, a member of the board of the foundation for the Ottawa Heart Institute, called Bryden to ask him to consider investing in the new technology that a young doctor at the institute, Tofy Mussivand, was developing. Mussivand's creation is a fully implantable palm-sized system that takes over the heart's pumping activity, designed for people who are waiting for a transplant or are ineligible for one. Without tubes that exit through the body, the HeartSaver VAD (ventricular assist device) lessens the risk of infection and can be used longer than the alternatives. Bryden saw the opportunity for profit and, he says, the potential to create something of lasting value to people's lives. So he did invest; once patents were secured, he took the company public in 1996.

The heartbeat of the company has not been steady. The stock broke the $20 level in 1999 and 2000, but dipped as low as 76 cents last fall. Part of that collapse is owed to technical delays that put the commercialization of HeartSaver at least three years behind schedule.

To give itself something to sell, World Heart acquired the Novacor LLC unit of Edwards Lifesciences Corp. in 2000. Novacor had a product, the left-ventricle assist device (LVAD), that's not as sophisticated as the HeartSaver VAD, but is considered one of the better products of its generation. It came with a base of staff and customers in Europe and North America.

The Novacor LVAD had a hiccup of its own when a slightly higher incidence of stroke was reported in patients who used it compared to a rival device. An engineering improvement followed. Now, Bryden calls it "the best approved pump in the market." World Heart also made a splashy introduction, on the day before Valentine's Day, of its "optimized" HeartSaver. With its share price improving (to around $2), and both equity ($3 million) and debt ($10 million) financing recently completed, Bryden is optimistic.

But at the press conference in the Toronto Exchange Tower, attended by just 30-odd people, some investors were less, well, pumped. Human trials on HeartSaver will not start until 2005. This company may continue to be best known for its burn rate.

At lunch in Ottawa, over his favourite drink-a Manhattan in a tumbler-and a salmon salad, Bryden fields the toughest questions I can think of about World Heart and the Senators. But he is supremely confident, hard to knock off his stride, whatever I throw at him. There is only one question that causes him to pause, redden slightly and clear his throat before answering in his usual straightforward way. A search revealed that in October of last year, his wife, Sandy, bought Bryden's half of their $1-million house in the Glebe. (There were two mortgages on the property, both over $600,000.) When recomposed, Bryden explains that the security of their home was important to Sandy as a wife and mother, so she traded in some World Heart stock to clear some of the mortgage and put the house in her name.

Back in his car, a silver Oldsmobile, Bryden is back in control, driving fast and reaching for his cellphone to check his timing with his secretary. There are some documents he has to review by 1:15 p.m., no later, he says. Everything is tightly managed: how much he can give, how much he'll say, how he will say it and for what purpose. "I have a very academic view of business," he suddenly offers a few minutes later in a stretch of car silence. So I ask him what prompted him to study law. He answers immediately: "I wanted to see life from the other end of the telescope."

The locals say the house where Rod Bryden was born was so drafty you could throw a cat through it. No insulation. No central heating. No electricity. Three or four children crawl into one bed at night to keep warm, with a pile of blankets and overcoats on top. It is to this farmhouse near Port Elgin, N.B., that Kathleen and John Geddes Bryden come from Scotland with their two eldest boys in 1929.

The Brydens and their eventual brood of six boys raise pigs and cattle. What they don't eat themselves, they sell to cover other essentials. The staple vegetables are potato and turnip. In 1939, their father enlists, serving in Labrador to protect the country against the German submarine threat. After the war, with the help of veterans' programs, the Brydens buy a farm overlooking Northumberland Strait.

The farm offers a nicer house-and access to high school, a privilege the four oldest boys will never know. Only Rod, and his next older brother, John, have the opportunity.

Rod's intellectual gifts are evident early on. In Grade 6, he scores the best results in province-wide tests. But work on the farm is just as highly valued. The senior John Bryden has a disabling bronchial condition from his time in Labrador. Rod, the youngest and, by his early teens, the only son living at home, picks up the slack. In the winter, when the supplemental cattle feed is dropped at the edge of the road, he trudges up and down their half-mile-long lane, back and forth with the 100-pound bags on his back. He learns not to complain about hard work. There are two things that stay with him. "I liked feeling important even as young as 5," he says. And this: "The whole process generated a too-high sense of responsibility."

Bryden's hand up was a scholarship to Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. To support himself and his new wife, Georgia, whom he married at 19 in his second year, he sold mutual funds. He made more money than his professors. "The common characteristic of our family is that I don't remember any of us not being employed even at times of high unemployment," he says.

From Sackville, Bryden went to the University of New Brunswick, in Fredericton, to study law, again on scholarship, and then did a master's in law at the University of Michigan. He had figured out how to get to the other end of that telescope, and it wasn't by following the usual career scenario. "Graduating from law school as a student, I go into practice," he says. "Ten years later, I could be a reasonably respected junior member of the bar, working on significant cases, hopefully, under a more senior lawyer. And 15 or 20 years later, I might be that senior lawyer myself. I don't think I like that program." Why? "Too goddamned slow!" he retorts. The fast track: "As a teacher of law, I'd have the opportunity to be consulted by very senior practitioners."

The chance came when Otto Lang, then dean of law at the University of Saskatchewan, met Bryden at a faculty recruitment fair in Chicago. "We hit it off right away," Lang says. He couldn't offer Bryden a competitive salary-he had graduated at the top of his class and could have gone anywhere in the United States-but the two wanted to work together. In Regina, Bryden took easily to teaching. An expert in tax and corporate law, the young professor also got to fulfill his ambition of consulting on important legal matters. He participated in the drafting of the new Canada Business Corporations Act and a revision to the Income Tax Act.

When Lang decided to run for the federal Liberal nomination in a Saskatoon riding, Bryden revealed another kind of expertise. "He observed our campaign and asked for a meeting," Lang says. "By the time the meeting was over, he was in charge." Lang won the seat in a riding where the Liberals had traditionally come in third.

Lang remembers that for Bryden, the potential of politics was a revelation. It was 1968, the year of Trudeaumania, a fresh start in Canada. Bryden admired Lang enormously. Maybe Ottawa was the place to make his mark. "With a guy who wants to do the right thing, who is smart and principled and well connected, you can get a lot of good things done."

As special assistant to Lang at Energy Mines and Resources, and in top jobs at two dispensers of Trudeau largesse, the Local Initiatives Program and the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, Bryden gained a reputation as a wunderkind, adept at managing complex issues and finding common ground between business and government. The experience, he says, "allowed me to understand processes, how government works, how business relates to government." He worked on "more things that had more effect than anything else I've ever done."

But it wasn't enough. Bryden understood that a job at the top of the civil service wasn't secure; neither did it afford freedom to a guy with his own ideas. The more financially secure he could become, he reasoned, the more he could stick to his principles. "We talked about this a lot," says Lang. "He had in mind to go to the private sector to make money, so that one day he could return to political life."

The fortune he sought came quickly. He invested in-and quickly got rich from-Systemhouse, a specialist in the nascent business of computer information systems, founded by Jack Davies and John Kelly. In 1980, Bryden, as chairman, proposed that they take the company public. "He had very challenging objectives that involved high risk," says Kelly, who bowed out amicably before the public offering. "The sense I had of the expansion plan was that it was too aggressive."

The plan was to become a global player. In mid-1982, Systemhouse almost fell apart, but Bryden revived it with $14 million from loans and other holdings, plus $4 million from his friend Michael Cowpland. By 1990, however, debt brought Systemhouse to its knees again. Kinburn Corp., Bryden's holding company, defaulted on loans of $831 million. Bryden was forced to sell his assets. Systemhouse went to its American rival, EDS.

Bryden, to this day, vehemently justifies his actions. "Systemhouse was a great company when I sold it. To preserve strength in the underlying company, I built up huge debt in the holding company." He adds coolly, "It wasn't a huge personal crush to me." Losing $150 million isn't significant? Well, sure, he says, but it didn't affect his lifestyle. He lived in a relatively modest house in the wealthy enclave of Rockcliffe Park, and had never gotten into expensive habits like taking fancy vacations. If there's a regret, it's that Systemhouse became "the branch office" of an American company, EDS, when it could have been a world leader as a Canadian company. Bryden was left with a net worth of less than $10 million, he says, and a lesson he would carry through to his next ventures. "I don't have any partners whose agreement I have to get to do what I think needs to be done."

Ebullient still in the week after his announcement that his tax-shelter deal was alive and days before it would die, Bryden pulls up to a back entrance of the Corel Centre for a game between the Senators and the Florida Panthers. "It's not the most elegant way in," he says with a laugh, passing by some employees with a friendly but perfunctory hello. Bryden is not a flashy person. He is known for his charitable donations, though they're not publicized, and for his generous offers to people who have lost their jobs.

In his centre-ice suite, a group of mostly family members gather: Bryden's wife; his father-in-law, Joe; his brother-in-law; some nephews. There are some close business associates present as well, such as Jim Durrell, former mayor of Ottawa. The mood is relaxed, congenial, not celebratory.

The Senators lost that night, and a week later so would Bryden. He took the collapse of his Senators scheme stoically, especially considering the larger story arc. Acts I and II of his career, in academia and government, had been golden. Acts III and IV-the twofold collapse of Systemhouse followed by the twofold problems of the Senators and World Heart-have an unwelcome subplot: the guy who never made a lasting success of anything.

Bryden suggests that success in the conventional sense never mattered to him, that a family problem is the only thing that will really get him upset. He takes great pride in his children-three adult daughters from his first marriage, which collapsed after 28 years; and two stepchildren and a daughter from his second. His second wife, Sandy, was program director of a policy forum to which Bryden was invited as a speaker. They were married 13 years ago. They love to ski at Mont Tremblant, where he owns a condominium, and spend time in the summer in a house they bought on Cape Breton, where the children and grandchildren can convene.

Investors, governments and-by and large-the public in Ottawa have kept believing in Bryden. Partly this can be credited to his grasp of the levers of government, media and finance, and partly, no doubt, to that power of explanation of his. But there's also the fact that, in an era when executives so often line their own pockets while their enterprises tank, Rod Bryden took the hit along with his companies. What wealth he does have, he doesn't flaunt, unlike some of his brethren. In the wake of the collapse of his Senators deal, he says he's "delighted with the results," meaning that the city has a great team and a facility in which to play, "except it cost me a lot of money and 10 years of effort for which I personally get no value."

The future remains uncertain. The Corel Centre, which Bryden owns through his company, Palladium Corp., has a secured debt of more than $200 million and "very, very limited value if the NHL team is not playing in it," which is what will happen if the next owner moves the team to another market. In fact, the debt is higher than what the team could pay for the building and remain competitive as a franchise, he adds.

If you try to get deeper into his business philosophy, he'll begin, professorially, "The purpose of the business system is to build economic wealth for the benefit of the people in the community." Anyone can sound that altruistic, but Bryden can rhyme off some examples, besides the Senators, to show he practises that belief. He got involved in Paperboard Industries Corp. (one of his Kinburn holdings), because his second cousin, Hugh Campbell, was trying to save his little paper mill so jobs wouldn't be lost. As for World Heart, he could consolidate the California and Canadian offices to cut costs, he says, but he believes in remaining in Canada-a theme he has also sounded with the Senators and Systemhouse.

Is this just Bryden's self-serving spin? In part, sure. But if Canada didn't matter to Bryden, he would have decamped before he even got to the University of Saskatchewan and would have never sketched out a career plan that would get him into politics. "He is a macro guy looking for a macro legacy," says one of his former colleagues about Bryden's doggedness. "A success with the Senators would vindicate his lack of success in other ventures."

He still, in other words, has one pheasant to bag.

Jock itches

Some very, er colourful characters have felt the need to buy sports franchises in Canada. Sure, Rod Bryden's had his share of troubles, but he's downright vanilla compared to many of his predecessors. Consider:

Harold Ballard

Ballard took over as controlling shareholder of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1972, five years after the club had won the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in the '60s. The team hasn't won one since. Ballard narrowed seats to increase the capacity of Maple Leaf Gardens, and even went as far as to take down a portrait of the Queen to make more room. When confronted by angry monarchists, he griped, "What the hell position can a Queen play?"

Bruce McNall

Once the owner of the Los Angeles Kings and the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. In March, 1997, McNall, a member of the geek ranks of philatelists, began serving four years of a 70-month sentence for fraud of more than $236 million. To secure loans from various banks, he offered up false income tax returns and dead racehorses as collateral.

Peter Pocklington

The Man Who Sold Wayne Gretzky (for $15 million U.S.) had a well-earned reputation for digging deep into the public trough and running companies out of business. His penchant for paying himself management fees in the range of $2 million annually didn't endear him to creditors or fans. He finally lost the Edmonton Oilers in 1998.

Nelson Skalbania

The Bearded One bought and sold sports teams like hockey cards, though he's perhaps best remembered for running the Montreal Alouettes out of the Canadian Football League. Skalbania bought the team in 1981, but failed to pay the bills, forcing the league to revoke the franchise and dissolve the team a year later. He resurfaced briefly in 1996 as the head of a 10-person group buying the B.C. Lions. The rest of the partners never materialized, and the team was placed in receivership after five months.

Larry Ryckman

The hometown boy who saved the Calgary Stampeders by bringing quarterback Doug Flutie to town lived large in the early 1990s. The fun didn't last. He was charged this year with two counts of fraud for selling 600,000 shares of Aabbax International Financial Corp. that weren't his to sell. -

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