Here's all you need to know to understand Jim Balsillie's passion for the game of hockey.

At the Waterloo head office of Research in Motion, the main boardroom and conference rooms are named after some of the greatest hockey players of all time.

And true to his nature, Balsillie didn't dictate the names -- but he was certainly responsible for directing some spirited debate on the choices.

"I think the only rule was no two players from any one team," said a business associate of Balsillie, who asked not to be identified. "Otherwise, they'd all be Montreal Canadiens."

Balsillie, co-CEO of RIM and lifelong Habs' fan, not necessarily in that order, is on the verge of purchasing the NHL's Nashville Predators for as much as $238 million US.

Last week, he reached a lease agreement with the City of Hamilton for Copps Coliseum amid growing speculation that he'd like to move the franchise to southern Ontario.

That's made the BlackBerry billionaire a household name in Hamilton over the past couple of weeks.

Yet Balsillie, who is rarely quoted and has made no public comment about his plans for Hamilton, remains largely unknown in the Steel City. He could not be reached for comment for this article.

"He seldom speaks publicly but when he does, as far as I'm concerned it's the truth," said Hamilton businessman Ron Foxcroft, a frequent golf partner with Balsillie. "He never speaks in circles."

In any description of Balsillie, the same words keep popping up over and over, words that may seem contradictory.

Nice. Easygoing. Normal.

Intense. Focused. Competitive.

"You know the expression 'a Type A' personality?'" said Balsillie's associate. "Think Type AAAA.

"I mean that in a positive way because he's a very nice guy, just very intense, very focused," he added.

Foxcroft said that Balsillie is also a devoted family man to wife, Heidi, who is from Hamilton, and their two children.

Foxcroft recalled an incident last fall when he and Balsillie were set to go to Buffalo to catch the Sabres' home opener. But an apologetic Balsillie had to cancel at the last minute because he had forgotten it was Thanksgiving weekend and he couldn't interrupt family time at the cottage.

"I'll tell you what impresses me, for a man of such wealth, he's the most normal, feet-on-the-ground person I've seen," said Foxcroft.

Ah yes, the wealth. It's hard to escape that.

Earlier this year, Balsillie's worth was listed at $1.6 billion, tying him with Burlington's Michael Lee-Chin for 17th spot on the list of Canada's richest people.

"When you're with him in a normal circumstance, he's the most easygoing guy," Foxcroft said. But, he added, don't ever forget that Balsillie is also fiercely competitive and highly driven to succeed.

"Once the whistle blows for the deal, I'll tell you something, don't get in his way," added Foxcroft.

"Two months ago if anyone said to me they were thinking of bringing the NHL to Hamilton, my quote was 'You'd better seek medication first,'" said Foxcroft. "But because it's him, it's not as far-fetched as you think.

"He just might have the drive to do it," Foxcroft added.

Balsillie grew up in Peterborough, earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from Harvard. After becoming a chartered accountant, he worked for investment banks in Boston and New York.

Balsillie eventually returned to Canada in 1989 to become executive vice-president of Sutherland-Schultz Limited, a Kitchener-based, multi-faceted contractor.

One of Sutherland-Schultz's suppliers was a small company, virtually unknown at the time, called Research in Motion, which had been co-founded in 1984 by a University of Waterloo engineering student named Mike Lazaridis.

At the time, RIM was working in the areas of electronic engineering and computer software development for portable communication devices.

Balsillie left Sutherland-Schultz to become co-CEO of RIM in 1992.

The company's financial fortunes back then were far different than today's balance sheets.

The company did about $1 million in sales in 1992, which grew to about $8 million in 1995.

By comparison, in the last fiscal year, RIM's annual revenues had skyrocketed to almost $3.1 billion, with an annual profit last year of $635 million.

Balsillie's salary as co-CEO in 1998 was reported as $134,000 including bonuses. Last year, his salary was just over $592,000.

But Balsillie's immense wealth doesn't come from his annual wages.

In the fall of 1997, RIM became a publicly traded company, raising about $100 million through an initial stock offering priced at $7.25 per share.

By the summer of 1999, Balsillie held more than seven million RIM shares, making him a very wealthy man as RIM stock became one of the darlings of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

That was the year the company unveiled its revolutionary BlackBerry, which grew out of RIM's ongoing development of sophisticated two-way pagers.

In just two years, RIM's share price had rocketed to the stratosphere, moving from the initial offering price of $7.25 per share to over $80 a share in November 1999. By February 2000, the stock had risen to $149 a share and later that month, RIM shares briefly reached $260 a share.

But Balsillie and Lazaridis took pains to keep employees focused on the product, not the portfolio. Employees caught talking about RIM's stock price had to buy doughnuts for other staff.

The company was also known for its fun events, such as private concerts for staff featuring Aerosmith, the Barenaked Ladies and Tragically Hip.

Never far from the surface is Balsillie's competitive nature, which is reflected in RIM.

The company has been involved in legal fights over a number of patent infringement allegations. Last year, RIM paid out a massive $612 million to a small U.S. company to settle a long-standing dispute over patents that threatened to shut down use of BlackBerry devices across North America.

In 2002, Balsillie took control of a Cambridge company called GolfNorth, which operates 14 golf course in southern Ontario. GolfNorth recently purchased Ancaster's bankrupt Mystic Golf Club.

"Like everything, he wants to master it yesterday," said business associate. "He's attacking golf like anything else -- he wants to become an expert very quickly and he's working on it."

Foxcroft said that Balsillie, a 10-handicapper, is a member of Westmount in Kitchener, the exclusive Redtail Golf Club south of St. Thomas, and a course in Georgia.

But hockey remains at the top of the list for Balsillie, who continues to play in a recreational league.

Despite conquering the business world and achieving unimaginable wealth, Balsillie has said that one of his highlights was taking a pass from Habs' legend Guy Lafleur and scoring a goal in a charity game.

Foxcroft said that Balsillie's passion for business is exceeded only by his passion for sports. And that just might make him the right man to finally bring an NHL team to Hamilton, Foxcroft noted.

"There's no 'no' in his dictionary," said Foxcroft. "He's well-capitalized, but more important, he hires the best and the brightest people in the world and I know he's going to hire the best and brightest people in hockey.

"He'll find a way to make it work," he added.

sbuist@thespec.com

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