Where the River Flows

Peter Chiarelli is behind his desk finishing lunch, just before 2:00 PM.
"Come on in," he says through his last bite in his third-floor office in Rogers Place, overlooking the facility's Downtown Community Arena. Peter snaps the lid back on his lunch dish, puts it away and gets up from his desk to grab a bottle of water.

It's already been a busy day: the Edmonton Oilers just finished practice on the main sheet of ice at Rogers Place and the team announced defenceman Darnell Nurse is out of commission for three months with an ankle injury.
Peter slides into a chair and pulls up to a round meeting table.
"How's half an hour?" Peter serves back when quizzed about how much time he has to share.
The 30 minutes goes by in what feels like mere seconds. Childhood minor sports memories around Ottawa, playing hockey at Harvard University, being dangerously close to the Boston Marathon bombing and hobbies are conversation chapters showcasing Peter's 52 years of life. When he speaks of them, he articulates like a skillful essayist choosing his words carefully. Even methodically.
"I still think I'm at the start of my journey here in Edmonton," Peter says of the time since the April 24, 2015 press conference when Oilers Entertainment Group Vice-Chairman and CEO Bob Nicholson introduced Peter as the new Oilers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager.
He has made his mark on the Oilers, including this year - acquiring defenceman Adam Larsson in the much talked-about trade involving Taylor Hall, signing top NHL free agent Milan Lucic this past offseason and sending Nail Yakupov to St. Louis earlier this year.
"The more experience you get in this business the more you learn you don't win a trade. A good trade helps both teams," he matter-of-factly says. "I think getting to that realization is really important. Knowing there's another GM on the other side that you have to work with is something you always have to keep in mind."
A few days before Christmas, the Oilers had a 17-12-5 record - already more than half of last season's total wins of 31, with four more months in the schedule.
Peter grew up in Nepean, Ontario - near Ottawa - and found the competitive spirit nestled in the back of a school yard. It was either Grade 2 or 3, he estimates, when he played football. Tackle football.
"As soon as I made my first tackle that day I wanted to score a touchdown. Ever since then I've wanted to do well in sports. And that translates to will and emotion in the business world."
As a young man, he played many sports. His passion, though, was clear: hockey - and he had all these hopes and dreams packed in his equipment bag.
"I guess when I was a teenager I realized that I'd never make the National Hockey League as a player. At first, yeah - it was hard to accept but I was pragmatic about not playing in the NHL."
Then, came a pivotal decision for Peter - attending the prestigious Harvard University from 1983 to 1987, graduating with a degree in Economics.
"Harvard was the best of both worlds," Peter says of hockey, where he was captain of the hockey team. "It was a most significant decision for me. You weren't the most important person there at any time. There was such a group of intelligent and talented people that it humbled you to strive to be the best you could be. The bar was set so high and you always knew someone was better than you - and that challenged you."
After Harvard, Peter moved north - back to Ottawa - and graduated with a law degree from the University of Ottawa. He then set up a law practice in the nation's capital specializing in small business law.
Peter handled a minor pro hockey contract for a client in his practice. From that experience he got the bug for the business of hockey. Shortly after, Peter left his Ottawa law practice to become a player agent in the NHL for six years.
Then in 2000, he joined the Ottawa Senators as the Director of Legal Relations.
"I didn't know if I wanted to manage in the NHL," Peter admits.
But he liked the challenge of watching - and, more importantly - finding talented hockey players. Two of his former Harvard teammates were coaching college hockey and asked Peter to scout some young prospects in the Ottawa Valley area.
It was something he enjoyed.
Meanwhile, Peter quietly watched General Managers John Muckler and later, Bryan Murray going through their paces managing the Senators.
"Then, one day, I thought to myself 'I can be a GM in the National Hockey League'", he says.
In 2005, Peter became the Ottawa Senators' Assistant General Manager. The following year on May 28, he was named General Manager of the Boston Bruins.
That's where he made a name for himself, navigating the Bruins to four 100 points-plus seasons. In the 2008-09 season, the Bruins had 116 points with a club record tying 54 wins earning PeterThe Sporting News "NHL Executive of the Year".
Peter reached the pinnacle of his time in Boston in the spring of 2011: when the Bruins won their first Stanley Cup since 1972 with Peter being only the third GM to bring Beantown a Stanley Cup championship- Art Ross and Milt Schmidt, the others to achieve this feat. -The Bruins returned to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2013, but lost to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Perhaps Peter's most poignant Boston experience came April 15, 2013 - a Monday: the day of the Boston Marathon bombing.
"My wife has run the marathon. But not that year," Peter says. "I was out for a run in Boston along the Charles River and was listening to music on my iPod. I was running on Memorial Drive and they were doing construction around the area. I heard two large bangs behind me and I thought it was a dump truck - you know, those big bangs you hear when the boxes are emptied. But, on that day, I didn't see any dump trucks. So I kept running."
Peter looked across the river. Ambulances and police cars were everywhere.
He stopped and checked Twitter.
"At first people thought it was a gas explosion at the Marathon's finish line," he says. "Shortly after we found out that it was a terrorist bombing."
And those big bangs he heard? They were the two bombs.
"They shut the city down for four days," said Peter. "You were basically under house arrest because they couldn't find the terrorist."
Peter and his family lived in Lexington, a suburb of Boston. The convicted suspect of the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was found hiding in a boat in Watertown, two towns away from Lexington.
"I remember taking my dogs for a walk into a treed area near our house before they found the terrorist. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking the guy might be behind me."
The experience brought a new appreciation of first responders to Peter. That's why he accepted the position of Edmonton Police Foundation Ambassador in November 2016 and will be involved in fundraising events for police work.
Overlooking the Edmonton river valley from his current home downtown, Peter sees similarities with Boston and Ottawa - in fact, all three cities he's lived in have rivers flowing through them.
"The people here in Edmonton are very passionate about their hockey and very resilient," he says.
He has a past connection with Edmonton: Mark Carney, former Bank of Canada Governor and current Governor of the Bank of England, lived in Edmonton as a child. Carney was Peter's roommate at Harvard and was the best man at his wedding to his wife Alicia.
"It's kind of ironic Mark is from Edmonton and worked in Ottawa. And now I'm from Ottawa and working in Edmonton."
Peter looks forward to enjoying Alberta more. He's visited Jasper and spoke at a hockey event recently in Bonnyville.
"Hockey has either followed me wherever I've gone or I've been places because of it," says Peter.
There is of course, life outside of hockey.
"The longer I do this job the more ways I look to turn it off. It's important because this job can consume you," he says.
"But I still wake up in the morning and get excited about doing something good."
Fly fishing is a hobby. So is golf. Reading and exercising, too.
Peter and Alicia have two children: Talia is a gymnast attending the University of Michigan and son Cameron is a sophomore at Harvard playing hockey.
The family has a summer home in Cape Cod. "We got to spend a bit of time there last summer," he says. "It's very relaxing."
A proud Italian, Peter's favourite dish is eggplant with Italian sausage on the side.
One day, perhaps, that might be lunch when the Oilers are the cream of the crop in the NHL.
But, for now, it's salad. Because Peter knows there is still work to be done in Edmonton, but will enjoy the journey along the way.