PEORIA — The Peoria Rivermen lost their champion, and central Illinois one of its most iconic sports figures ever, when Bruce Saurs died at age 88 — just a few hours after his birthday — around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday morning.



Saurs was an elite businessman who built an auto dealership empire, but he grew to even greater prominence in the community as the out-spoken, fiery owner of professional hockey's Rivermen for nearly 20 years.



His roots in the Peoria sports scene went back more than 60 years.



Saurs saved hockey here when he bought the then-International Hockey League Rivermen on July 1, 1989 from a Peoria Civic Center ownership that reported it had operated the team at a loss of nearly $1 million.



A year later, Saurs reported an operational profit of $1,400. It was a huge achievement in a minor-league sports world where most teams operated at deficits. Bigger even, that he managed it in the heart of basketball country.



He fell in love with the sport, and in the 1990-91 season saw his team win a professional hockey record 18 straight games and go on to win the Turner Cup in the IHL, playing before more than 250,000 spectators and drawing media attention to Peoria from all over North America.



Saurs pioneered a deal for Peoria to become the St. Louis Blues primary and exclusive farm team -- the first such deal in the class-AAA IHL -- and the beginning of an affiliation that would endure for nearly two decades.



He moved the Rivermen into the class-AA ECHL in 1996-97, partnering with local businesswoman Anne Griffith. At the same time he partnered with Chicago billionaire Don Levin and others for an IHL team in San Antonio, Texas.



The Texas team ultimately failed, but in Peoria, he put an ECHL team on the ice that won a Kelly Cup championship in 1999-2000 and finished a nine-year run as the league's third-most winning team ever.



In 2005-06, he gambled on a move back up to class-AAA hockey, putting the Rivermen into the American Hockey League as the Blues farm team. When he was ready to retire in 2008, he passed up offers from other NHL teams to buy -- and move -- Peoria's team, instead holding out for a sale to the Blues.



When the Blues changed ownership and sold the Rivermen in the spring of 2013 -- leaving Peoria without its hockey team -- Saurs returned, and joined a five-man local ownership group to again save the game in Peoria. They bought a franchise in the class-A Southern Professional Hockey League, which finished third overall in its inaugural season last spring.



THE EARLY DAYS



Saurs graduated from Peoria High School in 1944, where he lettered in baseball for three seasons, appearing in two state tournaments.



He graduated from Bradley University in 1949, and returned to Peoria High as a teacher and coach for six years. He also served as a coaching assistant in basketball and football.



His baseball teams went 121-62 from 1950-55 and earned two trips to the IHSA state tournament (26-3 and 21-5 records, respectively).



Saurs teamed with Ed Stonebock and Harold Lintz in 1951 to establish the first Little League program in Peoria. Saurs -- who started playing baseball in the Sunday Morning League at age 14 -- managed the Cohen team in the A.M. League in later years.



While attending Bradley University, Saurs coached Lee Grade School -- at the time the smallest school in Peoria -- to four city basketball titles.



In 1955 he worked as a baseball scout, and was credited with the Pittsburgh Pirates signing of Peoria's Leon Hurst.



Saurs served with the U.S. Army Air Forces in Wiesbaden, Germany, from 1945-46, and was part of the 169th Fighter Squadron in the Illinois Air National Guard from 1951-54.



In 1956, he went to work as a car salesman. He joined auto dealer Lynn Velde in 1963, and two years later became a partner in Velde Ford. Saurs and his partner, Velde, bought a dealership in Vero Beach, Fla, in 1976, then launched Velde Lincoln Volvo of Peoria in 1984. In 1987, they added Cadillac Buick GMC.



In recent years, Saurs opened up The Corner Store in downtown Peoria, and a tavern, across from City Hall, called Bruce Saurs' Black Rabbit.



HONOR ROLL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE



Saurs won the Neve Harms Meritorious Service to Sports Award in 1990, the same honor his father, Eddie, had earned in 1968.



He was inducted into the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.



He was inducted into the Rivermen Hockey Hall of Fame in 1999.



He was inducted into the Bradley University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004.



He has served on and worked for countless committees and causes, and among his other honors are the United Cerebral Palsy Community Service Award, membership in Bradley University's Elite Centurion Society (and Distinguished Alumnus Award), a participant in BU's athletic Scholarship Society, past chairman of Salvation Army Tree of Lights, the 2013 Peoria Santa Claus Parade Grand Marshal, and held memberships in the Pekin Country Club, Mt. Hawley Country Club and Country Club of Peoria.



The Rivermen launched the Bruce Saurs Leadership Award, in his honor, after the 2013-14 season ended, and will present it annually to a player who displays leadership and committment to the game and the community.



The City of Peoria, in the fall of 2013, declared all future Rivermen home openers at Carver Arena as Bruce Saurs Hockey Night in Peoria.



THE LEGACY



Saurs was well-known and well-regarded throughout the professional hockey world, and he put Peoria on the map in three national circuits via the IHL, ECHL and AHL.



He was renowned for saying what was on his mind, and more than one NHL executive experienced his blunt rhetoric over the years when he felt the parent club's committment in Peoria didn't match his own.



Moments after one season opener, a sloppy game the Rivermen won, a staff member asked him what he thought of the game.



"I don't like this team," Saurs said bluntly, animated and red-faced, then walked away.



He once sent a message to IHL commissioner Tom Berry telling him not to come to Peoria for any Rivermen games, after Berry gave Cleveland's Chris Tamer a one-game suspension for a hit on Rivermen center Michel Mongeau that left the Peoria star with seven facial fractures.



When the Blues new owner, Tom Stillman, sold the Rivermen to Vancouver and left Peoria without a team in the spring of 2013 -- after promising Peoria fans just a few months earlier the Rivermen were here for the longhaul -- Saurs called the NHL owner a liar.



"I love the game, and I believe in the fans in central Illinois," Saurs said in an Oct. 24, 2013 Journal Star story when asked why he stepped up to fill the void left by the Blues.



"The Blues were wrong. The whole thing was sad, and it pissed me off. The community needs the game.



"I'm so excited to be back."



Dave Eminian covers the Rivermen and Chiefs for the Journal Star. Reach him at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Check out his sports blog, Cleve's World, at pjstar.com and follow him on Tout and Twitter @icetimecleve.