The St. Albert rugby club will raise a glass next month in memory of the man who tended its fields for close to 40 years.
St. Albert resident Norman Douglas “Doug” Krempien died Feb. 8 in hospital following a heart attack. He was 78.
Krempien was an active volunteer with the St. Albert Rugby Football Club for close to 40 years and was instrumental in the planning, construction, and maintenance of the group’s clubhouse and playing fields. He was also one of “The Nervous Nine” — the nine people who signed a loan guarantee in 1984 to finance construction of the St. Albert rugby clubhouse.
Krempien’s skills as a surveyor and dedication to groundskeeping were why St. Albert now boasts some of the finest rugby fields in Alberta, if not Canada, said long-time friend Roger Scott.
“I think we can put our grounds up against anybody’s, and that’s because of Doug’s work.”
Always pitching in
Born in 1943, Krempien grew up in Acadia Valley and went to high school in Calgary. Graduating from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1969, Krempien moved to St. Albert in 1971 and became a land surveyor, a job he held for some 43 years.
Krempien’s daughter, Erika, described her father as a hard-working man who would take the kids out snowmobiling or dirt-biking on the weekends. He owned three motorcycles and went on several cross-country trips on them.
“‘Any day is a good day if you are on your bike,’” Erika recalled her father as saying.
Erika said her father actually never played rugby growing up, although he was into baseball and other sports. She and Scott said Krempien likely got into rugby through his friendship with Gareth Jones, who was a founding member of the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
Scott said Krempien was a man of energy and vision, someone with things to do and goals to meet.
“Doug was the kind of person who’d do anything to help,” Scott said, and often did around the rugby club.
Scott said Krempien was a volunteer at the rugby club for close to 40 years, serving as its grounds director from 1984 to 1991 and 1998 to 2014 and grounds crew member at other times. He helped plant the trees around the club’s playing fields, installed its original telephone-pole goal posts and irrigation systems, and trimmed and fertilized the grass. He also played the occasional rugby game as a 25-year veteran of the Old Sturgeonians Rugby Football Club.
Krempien would often kick back with a beer and cheer on the teams at the club whenever he wasn’t busy as scorekeeper and timekeeper, Erika said. He also maintained the clubhouse and was a bit of a clean-freak about it — move one chair slightly out of place, and he would be in the next morning to move it back.
Krempien and the grounds crew spent hours and hours making sure the grass was just right, treating it more like a golf course than a rugby pitch at times, said club president Kendra Fiddler.
“I don’t think we could have paid him if we tried.”
Erika and Scott said Krempien was a prolific fundraiser who logged some 4,500 hours running charity bingos for various organizations. While he never played himself, Erika said Krempien put in all those bingo hours to give back to the community.
Fiddler said Krempien embodied lifelong volunteerism and always stepped up when something needed to be done.
“He was always at the rugby club. If you went in to get keys or something or open up a change room, he was there.”
Fiddler said Krempien’s name was engraved on a plaque dedicated to “The Nervous Nine” which hangs in the clubhouse and will soon be featured on its heritage history wall. Club members will raise a glass in his honour on March 11 during the Six Nations Rugby Championship.
Erika said she is still coming to terms with her father’s absence.
“To me, he’ll always be sitting on the deck at the rugby club in the summer having a pint.”
Krempien is survived by his wife Vivian Constance, son James, daughters Erika and Jennifer, and four grandchildren. He was predeceased by his parents Harold Krempien and Ellen Opheim and his brother Brian. At his request, no funeral service was held.
Condolences can be left at www.connelly-mckinley.com/obituaries/norman-douglas-doug-krempien.
