EDMONTON - Larry Thompson loved football and Edmonton. When he purchased the Edmonton Elks CFL franchise a year ago he was, as general manager Ed Hervey says, like a kid in a candy store.
A day after the announcement of Thompson’s death after complications following surgery, Hervey spoke of the team owner’s enthusiasm for the franchise, his passion for the community and how he recognized how important football was to Edmonton.
“It was almost like a kid at the candy store, and he finally got in,” Hervey, a former player, told a media gathering after the Elks practice Friday. “It was his opportunity to own the club and save the franchise…keeping the legacy of this team moving forward.”
The 65-year-old Thompson was a longtime season-ticket holder who bought the community-owned franchise in August 2024 when it was struggling on and off the field.
“There is no way to overstate the impact Larry Thompson and his family had on this organization,” said Chris Morris, another former player who Thompson hired as the team’s chief executive officer. “This organization was about to go bankrupt when he took it over.”
Financial problems were just one of the issues the team was struggling with at the time, including a name change from the historical “Eskimos” that fractured the team’s fan base.
“There were many credibility issues, there were problems with the community, there were issues with the way the club had conducted business over the last couple of years,” said Morris. “Larry’s presence here, alone, was enough to overcome much of that because everybody knows Larry was a straight shooter and he did things the right way and he’s someone who cares about the community.”
Morris said Thompson’s dream was to restore the franchise to its once storied place as perhaps the best in the CFL.
“That will continue through his wife, Deb, and the family,” Morris said. “The legacy of what he wanted to do is not lost on all the members of his family and they’re very much looking forward to carry that forward and making sure his vision for what this place can be comes to fruition.”
Thompson’s public imagine was of a man who rolled up his sleeves and built a construction company Morris called “an empire.” An astute businessperson, a devoted family man and one who loved his city.
What wasn’t known, perhaps, was his personal involvement with his employees and then the Elks players and staff.
“The things you wouldn’t see,” said Hervey. “Doing special things for the players, doing special things for their wives and families, things he was doing behind the scenes that will never get coverage, will never be written about. He was very mindful and conscious of the fact that these things were important to the fabric not only of the community, but of this organization.”
Morris said Thompson reminded him of his own father, a guy who without a lot of “formal education, just went out and decided to roll up his sleeves…went to northern Alberta and built an empire.
“The stories he told about flying planes and crashing planes and building roads through the snow and just finding ways to get things done.
“He’s just a remarkable human being and a tough, gritty guy who just cares so much about the people around him.”
The Elks will hold a moment of silence and have a small tribute to Thompson before Saturday’s home game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Morris said the team will figure out in the next few weeks how to properly honour Thompson long-term.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2025.
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