Stephen Laroche - Changing the Game - A History of NHL Expansion

CHANGING THE GAME

A History of NHL Expansion

STEPHEN LAROCHE

FOREWORD BY JOHN GARRETT

ECW PRESS

To my wife, Michelle, and my stepdaughter, Guenevere. This book has long been a dream of mine and I wholeheartedly thank you both for your support.

This book is also dedicated to all the players, coaches and management staff who were ever involved with an NHL expansion team. Hockey fans will forever remember your amazing experiences and all that you contributed to making the sport the greatest one in the world.

FOREWORD

by JOHN GARRETT

I was playing midget hockey in 1965 when the National Hockey League announced that they were going expand by adding six teams to form another division that would begin play in the 196768 season. The NHL had applications from 14 cities that wanted to get into the league. That meant there would be more opportunities for me, but being a professional hockey player was not at the top of my wish list until I started playing junior hockey in Peterborough. Then in my first year in junior I won a Memorial Cup and made the All-Star Team.

I was drafted by the St. Louis Blues a year before the World Hockey Association (WHA) started up and was soon traded from the Blues to Chicago as a future consideration to complete an earlier deal for Danny OShea. The WHA comes into the picture a bit here, because J.P. Bordeleau originally went from St. Louis to Chicago, but he then jumped to play with the Quebec Nordiques. Chicago wanted to cover their bases and needed a player to be named later if that happened and that player was yours truly.

The WHA began play in 197273 as an alternative to the NHL. Players who were previously obligated to play for the NHL team that drafted them or had traded for them now had an option. To make the paying public believe that they were truly big league, the WHA had to lure some name players. Ben Hatskin and the Winnipeg Jets went after Bobby Hull and were able to entice him to leave Chicago and head for the Manitoba capital. Hull was the centrepiece; he was the key that made other players believe this brand-new league could compete and would survive. The NHL establishment had its doubts and did not try to match the WHA money that was being offered to such great players as J.C. Tremblay, Frank Mahovlich, Paul Henderson, Gerry Cheevers and Derek Sanderson. Yet even Gordie Howe came out of retirement and was rejuvenated in 197374 when he was given the opportunity to play alongside his sons, Mark and Marty.

The WHA was the new league and could afford to try to be different. The blue puck they used rarely stayed circular after a few shots and never caught on. I have one in my basement. The clear glass boards of the St. Paul Civic Center, home to the Minnesota Fighting Saints, was a good idea for the fans but a nightmare for the goaltenders. In 196970, the NHL put in a rule limiting the curve in sticks to one inch, but the WHA had unlimited curvature. No wonder I let in all those long shots! The NHL limited their draft to 20-year-olds and up, but the WHA let players sign on as soon as they felt they were ready. The list of Hall of Famers and future stars who cut their teeth in the WHA is impressive. We had Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Ken Linseman, Rod Langway, Michel Goulet, Rick Vaive, Mike Gartner, Craig Hartsburg, Rob Ramage, Mike Rogers, Real Cloutier and many more.

Personally, I had the good fortune to play with some of the all-time greats. I signed with the Minnesota Fighting Saints in the WHA to get a chance to play with and learn my position from one of the best goaltenders in Olympic history, and one of the best people I have ever met, Jack McCartan. If I had stayed in the NHL, I would have been stuck in the Chicago organization behind Tony Esposito and Gary Smith. The kicker was that the Hawks, even if I made the big club, were offering less than half the money!

The WHA had its growing pains, some lasting longer than others. How many of todays fans remember the Michigan Stags, the Jersey Knights, the New York City Golden Blades or the Philadelphia Blazers? They were just a few of a long list of teams who fell by the wayside.

In the last year of the WHA, it became apparent that the league and the NHL would be better served if there was a merger. Or, as the NHL preferred to see it, an expansion to include the four strongest cities and four strongest teams in the WHA. I was playing in Hartford with the Whalers and we were excited about the possibility of playing in what every Canadian kid thought of as the best league in the world.

It didnt take long for people to realize that those four teams from the WHA were as good as or better than most in the NHL. Nobody thought our Whaler team, depleted by one-sided expansion rules, could ever make the playoffs. Yet led by a determined Dave Keon, we did. And once in the NHL, the Edmonton Oilers won five Stanley Cups in their first 10 years, the Quebec Nordiques became champions as the Colorado Avalanche and the Whalers won a Cup of their own as the Carolina Hurricanes. Not bad for expansion teams!

INTRODUCTION

To this day, I can vividly recall my beginnings as a hockey fan. It is a period I look back on fondly. My introduction to the worlds fastest sport came to me through books, television and, of course, hockey cards.

I was five years old during the 198182 season. There were 21 teams and the men who played for them were larger-than-life heroes. Although I had an appreciation for players from my hometown of Trenton, Ontario, like John Garrett of the Hartford Whalers and George Ferguson of the Pittsburgh Penguins, none of them were as big as Wayne Gretzky and his teammates on the Edmonton Oilers.

I wasnt just interested in what was going on the ice at the time. I was hooked on the history of the game. I had been taught about the Original Six era and knew which teams were around during those halcyon days. I was even more fascinated by the other teams that came after them. Once I saw a picture of a player from the California Golden Seals. Who were the Golden Seals? Why arent they in my hockey sticker album? Why dont I have any cards of them?

Soon enough I began to find out more about the games vast history and learned that occasionally teams had to relocate. That concept was introduced to me when the Colorado Rockies left the NHL and moved to New Jersey to become the Devils. I was also learning about the WHA and its crazy history and knew that the Oilers, along with the Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets, had been a part of it. Even though I was quickly discovering that a career as a hockey player was not for me, that didnt keep me from enjoying many other aspects of the game.

As I grew older, I learned more about the origins of every NHL team. I developed a keen interest in the concept of expansion in my teen years, when the league was growing by leaps and bounds. The game was heading into the Sunbelt and new teams were appearing at a rapid pace, either through expansion or relocation. The new teams all seemed to struggle out of the gate, but I knew that that was no more than could be expected from them in their first season.

As an adult, I came to truly appreciate the human side of playing for an expansion team through my interactions with retired players in my job with In The Game, a trading card manufacturer. When I called certain players to see if they were willing to sign on for our projects, the conversation occasionally turned to their experiences playing for expansion teams. Their stories of those days were often entertaining, at times shocking, and gave me a genuine appreciation for what they went through.