Pride in Ownership

Between them, Henry and Susan Samueli have two doctorates, a bachelor of arts degree, a bachelor of science and a master's. Both have had impressive careers: Henry, an electrical engineer, was a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA and is the co-founder, board chairman and chief technical officer of Broadcom. Susan was a systems engineer at IBM until she left to raise the couple's three daughters.

They also have a net worth of $1.6 billion, according to Forbes, making Henry the world's 413th-richest man. That takes into account the $180 million they've donated since 1998 to educational, cultural and religious organizations, including $30 million to UCLA and $20 million to UC Irvine.

What they don't have is experience owning a sports franchise. Or much knowledge of hockey.

But their love of sports and their commitment to the area they've called home for a decade led them to buy the Mighty Ducks from the Walt Disney Co., a deal that was approved last week by the NHL's Board of Governors. The Samuelis, who said their goal is to have "the best hockey team in the western United States," will introduce Brian Burke as the Ducks' new general manager and announce other staff appointments today at a news conference at the Arrowhead Pond.

They didn't originally intend to own the Ducks, they said in an interview Saturday at the Corona del Mar office of H&S Ventures, the company that handles their investments. But after they purchased the management contract for the Pond in 2003 they concluded that it made business sense to control the arena's main tenant, even though the Ducks had lost $12 million during their march to the Stanley Cup finals in 2002-03 and $28 million in 2003-04.

"It turned out there were multiple bidders for the team, and it turned out we were the only ones who were Orange County members of the community," Henry Samueli said. "There was a risk.... There were a couple of potential bidders who were talking about moving the team out to another state so we didn't want to see the Mighty Ducks leave Orange County, both as members of the community and as operators of the Arrowhead Pond."

The Disney Ice practice facility, included in the $75-million purchase price, will be renamed Anaheim Ice, but the Ducks will keep their name next season because the NHL requires longer notice for such changes. The Samuelis said they might conduct a "name the team" contest for the next season.