Every sport needs a ring leader and in broomball that is Lynn Fowler
Darren Campbell
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 05/01) - When talk in Yellowknife turns to broomball, it isn't long before you hear Lynn Fowler's name being mentioned.
For good reason.
Fowler helped bring the sport to the city, was among those who organized the first city league and has been a big reason why the sport has stayed strong in Yellowknife while it has faltered elsewhere in the NWT.
 Lynn Fowler |
Being organized is one of Fowler's fortes. Even after 22 years, he hasn't lost his zest for the sport. He continues to organize tournaments, draw up practice and game schedules and make all the arrangements when the men's teams go away to tournaments.
It's a job most people won't touch. But Fowler isn't most people.
"We all should try to give something back to the sport that we're involved in," said Fowler. "I'm not ready to get out yet."
Broomball players in Yellowknife are lucky Fowler hasn't had his fill. However, if events had unfolded the way he had originally planned, he would not have ended up here in the first place.
Raised in Rossburn, Man., Fowler came to Yellowknife in 1969. It was a stop-over on the way to Faro, Yukon to take a job as a pipe fitter.
Fowler's brother, Ryan and his uncle, Ray Charlton, were living here at the time and Fowler decided to pay them a visit on his way to the Yukon.
He never made it to Faro and instead worked at Giant Mine for two months before getting a job with the NWT's department of education at their resource center.
"It's the best move I ever made coming up here," said Fowler, who has called Yellowknife home for 32 years now. "I like it here. I like the people. I don't mind the winters. You kind of get used to it."
Staying for good
During the early 1970's he worked and enjoyed the great outdoors. An avid hunter, Fowler enjoyed going after caribou, moose and ptarmigans. Anything that roamed the bush.
Fowler said he didn't get involved in sports until the mid 1970's and even then it wasn't broomball but another sport under the letter B -- bowling.
He got his first taste of the sport that has become his passion in 1978 when he played for a Weaver and Devore team in a Caribou Carnival tournament.
Fowler remembers it was a rough tourney but when his friend Peter Milner suggested they start up a league, he agreed.
By the early winter of 1979, Fowler had a 13-team mixed league going that lasted a year-and-a-half. When that petered out, the men's league that still exists today in Yellowknife developed. The women's league started in 1984.
Taking the lead and organizing sports -- Fowler also ran the city ball hockey for seven years -- was not a problem for him. He knew somebody had to do it.
"I figured if you want to play a sport, you've got to start it up," said Fowler.
Not that he hasn't had lots of help over the years in keeping broomball alive and well.
He credits Dan and Nancy Hayward with helping with fund-raising over the years. His brother, Pat, was a head official for the league for 15 years.
Then there are people like Ray Gagnon and Keith Houghton who Fowler said were instrumental in getting the senior men's team, the Yellowknife Ravens, and the Westown Wheelers junior boys program off the ground.
He said he does not mind being the organizer and has learned over the years how to be a good one.
"I enjoy it and I enjoy the people but you have to be diplomatic," said Fowler. "You have your rough times. You have to work with everybody. It can't just be your way or the highway."
Skills serve him well
Fowler's organizational skills have served him well in his personal and professional lives as well.
He had to be organized in 1979 when he and first wife, Bev, divorced. It turned him into a single parent and he raised their two children, Candace and Shane, on his own.
While he said the kids were a stabilizing force in his life, Fowler provided them with stability as well. He said the clan remains very close.
Fowler married again in 1998 to the woman he calls "the love of my life", Liz Fowler. The couple met in 1990. An Inuk, who hails from Iglulik, Liz is a former teacher. Like her husband, Liz also works as a consultant for the department of education.
He worked for 25 years with the department of education in their Yellowknife resource centre. In his work he supplied the NWT's teachers with resources like audiotapes and films until the resource centres were closed down in 1994.
Since leaving the civil service, Fowler has worked as a fund-raising consultant -- advising groups on how to raise money. And in the North raising money means running bingos.
Fowler knows all about bingos. He has gained an intimate knowledge of them thanks to being involved in broomball.
He's there so much, many people know Fowler "Bingo Man." He has come to like and respect the people who regularly support bingos in the NWT.
"I like the people, I like the bingo players. These people are a lot of fun. It's like another family."
Despite being at the game for over 20 years, Fowler doesn't plan on getting out of the organizing business yet. Like Bob Dylan once sang, Fowler wants to keep on, keeping on and it appears those who depend on him are willing to let him.
"I don't think I've made too many mistakes," said Fowler. "I've made some but I'm still here."
