EDMONTON, Alberta -- Sports magnate Peter Pocklington was 'winged' Tuesday by police who also shot the gunman that held him hostage for nearly 11 hours.
Pocklington, 40-year-old owner of the NHL's Edmonton Oilers, was recovering in the University of Alberta Hospital, in satisfactory condition with superficial wounds to his left arm and chest.
His unidentified captor -- about whom little was known except that he spoke with a foreign accent and wore a ski mask throughout the incident -- was in the same hospital after being hit in the upper right forearm by a slug from a police officer's M-16 rifle.
He was reported in stable condition.
A police spokesman said the rescue came after the gunman, who had been holding Pocklington in an upstairs bedroom, was 'enticed' to the kitchen of the Pocklington's art-filled mansion, where police had arranged to leave two suitcases holding $1 million in ransom.
However, four members of the Edmonton police force's crack emergency task force had entered the house earlier through a secret entrance, about which police refused to release details.
When the gunman led his hostage downstairs, his hands tied and a pistol pressed against his side, police sprung their trap.
'One of our men fired one shot,' said police spokesperson Deb Palmer. The bullet shattered the gunman's right forearm, then deflected and hit Pocklington.
'He was winged. It's not serious,' Ms. Palmer said.
Both men were rushed to the hospital, where the gunman was prepared for surgery.
Pocklington's wife, Eva, apparently the assailant's intended target, escaped early in the drama and planned to spend the night at the hospital.
Police spokesman Lance Beswick said that besides the money, the gunman had demanded an airplane to take him to an undisclosed location.
The incident began at 11:45 a.m. EST when the man, brandishing a handgun and a knife, broke into the plush mansion and tied up Pocklington and two servants with lengths of wire.
The couple's 5-year-old son, Zachary, was in school.
Police were notified by a family friend who had been speaking with Mrs. Pocklington on the telephone and became suspicious when a scream rang out and the line went dead.
'Thank God he was a reasonable fellow and listened to reason.'
Pocklington said he was leaving home about 9:30 a.m. MST Tuesday when confronted by 'a man with a gun, with a mask. The gun looked like a cannon. I went cold.
'He put the gun to my head and said if I moved I was dead. He said he wanted $2 million.'
Pocklington said he was forced back into the art-filled mansion in the fashionable neighborhood overlooking the North Saskatchewan River.
The hooded gunman tied up Pocklington and two servants hand and foot with lengths of wire in the living room. The gunman, Pocklington said, had a .357-magnum handgun he said was loaded with 'mushroom bullets.'
'I told him all people were good and there was no reason to shoot me,' Pocklington said.
A family friend was speaking with Mrs. Pocklington by telephone when the incident began. She became alarmed when she heard a scream and the line went dead. Calling back, the friend was tipped off that something was amiss when Mrs. Pocklington misidentified her and referred to an aerobics exercise class in which she was not enrolled.
Police speculated that Mrs. Pocklington, a pretty blonde in her late 30s, may have been the intended target of what one described as an 'aborted kidnap' and that the gunman was forced to hold Pocklington when his wife fled.
Police responding to the friend's alert were met by a distraught Mrs. Pocklington, who had run wildly into the street barefoot, in slacks and an 'I Love New York' T-shirt.
She said she bolted from the gunman when he tried to force her into a truck in the garage.
'He told me he'd kill those inside if I tried anything,' she sobbed to police. 'Did I do the wrong thing?'
More than 40 police cordoned off the area and began negotiations with the gunman by telephone. Three hours later housekeeper Carmine Mitchell, 55, and live-in babysitter, Joseph Wright, 20, of Ainsworth, Neb., were released unharmed.
The gunman demanded $2 million inititially but then settled for $1 million and a flight to an undisclosed location, police said. Several banks assembled the money in $100 bills and turned it over to police in two suitcases.
Obeying the gunman's instructions, a police officer entered the home, deposited the suitcases in the main floor kitchen and left.
However, four members of the crack emergency task force had entered the house earlier through a secret entrance. Police would not be specific about this part of their operation.
The gunman was felled by a single M-16 rifle shot from a police sharpshooter that shattered his right forearm as he led Pocklington down the stairs from a second-floor bedroom to collect the ransom.
Chief police negotiator Insp. James Cessford said that throughout the negotiations, the gunman 'was threatening Pocklington's life.
'He was rational to a point and quite intelligent,' Cessford said. 'He said he wasn't concerned for his or Pocklington's life. He was suicidal ... he wasn't happy with the position he was in.'
The police bullet shattered the gunman's right forearm, deflected and grazed Pocklington across the upper left chest and struck his underarm. 'It felt like a truck hit my arm,' he said.
The multimillionaire, who reportedly did not believe in locked doors, said the ordeal was a hard lesson. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have have to change security. I've always trusted people in the past.'
A former car salesman from London, Ont., Pocklington parlayed the lessons learned from a crafty co-worker into a personal fortune estimated at $100 million from $1 billion worth of assets in real estate, automotive sales, oil, finance and food processing.
Of his business practices, Pocklington once said 'it's all just selling cars, only with more zeroes. Like the difference between your bank loans and mine -- same game, more zeroes.'
He admitted frankly he bought the NHL Oilers -- after viewing the first hockey game of his life -- because he wanted to have a bigher profile and recognition.
His 1976 purchase of the Oilers from Vancouver tycoon Nelson Skalbania was made with some cash, a seven-carat diamond ring and a Rolls-Royce Phaeton.
Besides the Oilers, Pocklington's sports empire included the Edmonton Drillers soccer club and the Triple-A Trappers, a Chicago White Sox farm club.
