EPISODE 318: The WHA & Original NHL Winnipeg Jets - With Geoff Kirbyson

We head "True North" to the Canadian province of Manitoba this week in search of heretofore undiscovered historical nuggets from the WHA and original NHL versions of hockey's Winnipeg Jets - with veteran journalist/author Geoff Kirbyson.

Kirbyson's accounts of the Jets' early years in the revolutionary World Hockey Association from 1972-79 ("The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to Greatness"), and the club's original 17 seasons in the National Hockey League from 1979-96 ("Broken Ribs and Popcorn: How the Winnipeg Jets became the best team in the NHL's most offensive era to not win the Stanley Cup"), are must-reads for fans of either incarnation of the original team - and even for curious Arizona Coyotes or current-generation Jets (née Atlanta Thrashers) followers befuddled by the NHL's "official" history. 

     

The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to Greatness - Buy Book Here

Broken Ribs and Popcorn: How the Winnipeg Jets became the best team in the NHL's most offensive era to not win the Stanley Cup - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 293: Shooting the WHA - With Steve Babineau

Legendary Boston sports photographer Steve Babineau ("Behind the Lens: The World Hockey Association 50 Years Later") joins the pod this week to discuss his new, lovingly-curated collection of largely never-before-seen images of the colorful 1970s challenger hockey league that helped kick-start a life-long love for photography - and a 50+ year career behind the lens shooting some of the game's biggest stars.

A teenaged "Babs" was there at the old Boston Gardens on October 12, 1972, when the inaugural puck was dropped in the history of the New England Whalers (vs. the Philadelphia Blazers, on the second-ever day of WHA action) - unwittingly capturing some of the very first images of the revolutionary circuit that would ultimately give minor-league journeymen, NHL elder statesmen and even fledgling junior hockey phenoms (like a 17-year-old wunderkind named Wayne Gretzky) a chance to not only play, but creatively thrive.

And that guy Gretzky?  Well, we'll let Babs tell you that story!

Behind the Lens: The World Hockey Association 50 Years Later - Buy book here

EPISODE 280: "Bleeding Green" - With Christopher Price

​​The Hartford Whalers were a beloved hockey team from the​ moment of their founding in 1972 as the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers.

Playing in the National Hockey League’s smallest market and arena after the 1979 WHA merger/absorption/expansion, the Whalers struggled in a division that included both the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens - but the club's fans were among the NHL’s most loyal. In 1995, new owners demanded a new arena - and when plans fell through, moved the team to Raleigh, North Carolina - where they became today's Carolina Hurricanes.

Astonishingly, the Whalers remain as popular as ever in their former home town and previous incarnation. Even though more than two decades have passed since Connecticut’s only professional sports team relocated, nobody has truly forgotten the team, its history, or its uniquely memorable (and still highly profitable) logo. And while the NHL continues to thrive without them, the Whalers' impact stretches far beyond the ice and into a still very-much-alive cultural phenomenon.

Boston Globe sportswriter Christopher Price ("Bleeding Green: A History of the Hartford Whalers") grew up in Connecticut as a diehard Whalers fan, experiencing firsthand the team’s bond with the community. Drawing from all aspects of the team’s past, he shares an uncensored history of ​the region’s still-favorite professional sports franchise.

PLUS: Listen for your chance to win a free copy of "Bleeding Green"!

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AND: ​Get up to $100 in matching deposit credit when you sign up to try PrizePicks - and use promo code GOODSEATS!

Bleeding Green: A History of the Hartford Whalers - buy book here

EPISODE 277: Winnipeg Jets & Phoenix Coyotes Hockey - With Curt Keilback

Fans of the original NHL version (1979-96) of the Winnipeg Jets, as well as the first ten seasons (1997-2007) of their subsequent incarnation as the Phoenix Coyotes, will surely remember the dulcet tones of team radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster Curt ​​Ke​i​lback (​"​Two Minutes for Talking to Myself: Jets, Coyotes, Tales, Opinions​"​).

For 27 seasons - spanning some 2400+ games - ​Ke​i​lback was the signature voice of the since-rebranded Arizona franchise, a seemingly lone constant amidst the club's steady stream of existential change from 1970s World Hockey Association dominance, to NHL small-market competitive frustration, to (supposedly) "greener pastures" in the Valley of the Sun.

​Ke​i​lback takes us on clear-eyed journey back through some of the more memorable moments of his Jets/Coyotes broadcasting career, including: the original (and much-copied) "Winnipeg White Out;" the ill-fated 1996 "Save the Jets" campaign; how he kept his job despite the Jets' impending move; the not-so-great coaching tenure of "The Great One;" and his call of "The Goal" - then-Washington Capital rookie Alexander Ovechkin's impossible-to-describe, body-prone, behind-the-back score against the Coyotes in 2006.

PLUS: we debate the current wisdom and likely future of the current Arizona-labeled version of the franchise - and whether it will EVER work!

Two Minutes For Talking to Myself: Jets, Coyotes, Tales, Opinions - buy book here

EPISODE 273: The WHA’s Minnesota Fighting Saints - With Dan Whenesota

Obscure trivia answers abound this week, as we return to the pro rinks of the 1970s with Twin Cities sports fan extraordinaire Dan Whenesota ("A Slap Shot in Time") for a look back at the not one, but two World Hockey Association franchises known as the Minnesota Fighting Saints.

The first team was one of the WHA's original twelve franchises, playing from 1972 until mid-1976; the second was the rebirth of the league's hastily relocated Cleveland Crusaders, and played for part of 1976-77 season.  Neither incarnation completed its final season of play.

Save for a few games in the early months of the first version's inaugural season, both Fighting Saints played in the uniquely configured St. Paul Civic Center - where clear acrylic glass dasher boards offered fans completely unobscured views of all the action.

As for action, there was plenty - both in terms of fan-friendly uptempo offensive play, and aggressive, often penalty-drawing physicality - befitting of the team's name and iconic logo.

If you remember the WHA, the cross-town rival NHL North Stars, the movie "Slap Shot" (not-so-loosely based on the Saints and its minor league affiliate Johnstown [PA] Jets), or even simply where you were on June 27, 1972 when Bobby Hull stunned the sports world by signing with the upstart league - this is the episode for you!

A Slap Shot in Time: The Wild But True History of the Minnesota Fighting Saints - buy book here

EPISODE 259: Howard Baldwin Returns!

Hollywood film producer (Ray; The Game of Their Lives; Sudden Death) and original New England/Hartford Whalers founder/owner Howard Baldwin (Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood) returns after a three-year absence to help fill in some of the gaps left over from Episode 100, and to dish on "new" territory from his hard-to-believe career, including:

• The contagious indefatigable spirit of WHA founder Dennis Murphy

• Who really paid for Bobby Hull's headline-grabbing contract (and who didn't)

• How Houston and Cincinnati went from being "in" the June 1978 WHA-NHL "merger," to being "out" of the senior league's "expansion" a year later

• The early 1990s saga of the HC CSKA Moscow "Red Army" team (aka the "Russian Penguins")

• Why the way to San Jose stopped first in Pittsburgh and then Minnesota; AND

• The World Football League's (almost) "Boston Bulls"

Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood - buy here

“Red Penguins” - streaming video from Amazon Prime Video here

EPISODE 235: The Hartford Whalers - With Pat Pickens

We pick up where we left off in our previous episodes 62 (with the "Whaler Guys") and 100 (featuring WHA-version franchise founder Howard Baldwin) for a comprehensive look into the former NHL franchise that regularly sells more branded merchandise than even some current league teams - the Hartford Whalers.

Author Pat Pickens ("The Whalers: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Mystique of New England's [Second] Greatest NHL Franchise") walks us through the history and ongoing mystique of one of the National Hockey League's most enigmatic clubs - one whose legacy endures some 24 years after its odd and bittersweet relocation to Raleigh (via Greensboro), North Carolina in 1997.

The Whalers: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Mystique of New England’s (Second) Greatest NHL Franchise - buy book here

EPISODE 225: The Cleveland Barons - With Gary Webster

We close the gap between our previous explorations of the National Hockey League's former California Golden Seals and Minnesota North Stars with a deep dive into the two-year curiosity that bridged between them - the unforgettably forgettable Cleveland Barons.

Episode 111 guest and WKKY-FM/Geneva (OH) radio jock Gary Webster ("The NHL's Mistake By the Lake: A History of the Cleveland Barons") returns the 'cast - this time to go deep into the baffling prelude, chaotic operations, and historically debatable termination/relocation of a franchise that was seemingly snake bitten even before its hasty arrival in Northeastern Ohio in the summer of 1976.

Named for a decades-old, nine-time minor league AHL championship-winning team that preceded it until 1973 - which itself had been replaced by the struggling "major league" Crusaders of the wobbly World Hockey Association - the Barons came close to folding in both of its two NHL seasons, despite the frantic efforts of two separate ownership groups, a brand-new state-of-the-art arena, and at least one league bailout.

Along the way, attendance was meager, media coverage was scant, and on-ice play was woeful - the perfect ingredients for an episode sure to please!

The NHL’s Mistake By the Lake: A History of the Cleveland Barons - buy book here

EPISODE 204: WHA Hockey Completism - With Scott Surgent

Arizona State calculus professor Scott Surgent ("The Complete World Hockey Association, 11th Edition"; "The World Hockey Association Fact Book") joins this week to discuss his personal passion project of documenting everything statistical from the fascinatingly ephemeral World Hockey Association - despite never having witness a single game during its brief seven-year run (1972-79).

Like many young sports fans of the 70s living outside of actual WHA markets (for as long as they lasted), Surgent's first introduction to and ongoing understanding of the upstart WHA was by way of laboring through the tiny catch-all "scoreboard" agate of local newspaper sports sections - where league standings, player transactions and a random box score or two would qualify as "coverage."

Surgent would squint hard to literally and figuratively read between the lines as to what the WHA was all about - supplemented by an occasional wire service article, usually about a team (or the league itself) in financial trouble. Imagination and hearsay filled in the rest - until the league's "merger" with the NHL in 1979, when everything WHA-related seemingly vanished with it, as if nothing had ever transpired.

By the early '90s, Surgent was perplexed as to the continued absence of anything historical - let alone definitive - from the league's statistical existence. So he struck out on his own to literally set the record straight - resulting in the first edition of "Complete" in 1995.

25 years and ten editions later, Surgent's reference opus - all 526 glorious pages of it - is now the go-to resource for anyone seeking authoritative certitude about anything WHA.

Support the show by getting two free months of NordVPN - plus a FREE GIFT - when you use the promo code GOODSEATS at checkout!

     

The Complete World Hockey Association, 11th Edition - buy book here

The World Hockey Association Fact Book, Second Edition - buy book here

EPISODE 199: The "Forgotten" 1974 Summit Series - With Craig Wallace

After overwhelming response to our Episode 194 exploration ​of hockey's epic 1972 "Summit Series," we gas up the Zamboni for a return visit into Canada/Russian competition lore - this time for the equally intriguing (but often overlooked) sequel Summit Series of 1974 - with sports author/historian Craig Wallace (The Forgotten Summit: A Canadian Perspective on the 1974 Canada-Soviet Hockey Series).

While ostensibly a "round two" between the world's top national hockey programs, the 1974 Series differed in that the Canadian side was comprised exclusively of players from the World Hockey Association (WHA) - a major preseason promotional boost for the fledgling two-year-old circuit still struggling to gain a pro foothold against the mighty NHL.

As a result, wildly popular Canadian WHA stars like Winnipeg's Bobby Hull, Houston's Gordie Howe and Cleveland's Gerry Cheevers - each forbidden by the NHL from playing two years earlier - saw their first national team action, joined by returning series veterans Paul Henderson, Frank Mahovlich and Pat Stapleton.

Despite a strong start in the first two games, Team Canada could not replicate its trailblazing success from their 1972 exploits; the Soviets won the series (4 wins, 3 ties, 1 loss) - but as Wallace reveals, the games were close, extremely competitive and wildly entertaining - replete with just as much drama and excitement as its predecessor (and even better uniforms).

The Forgotten Summit: A Canadian Perspective on the 1974 Canada-Soviet Hockey Series - buy book here

EPISODE 197: Colorado "Rocky Hockey" - With Terry Frei

Former Denver Post columnist and long-time sports writer/author Terry Frei (“Third Down and a War to Go;” “'77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age” + plenty more) joins to discuss the briefly curious life (1976-82) of NHL hockey's Colorado Rockies - Frei's first-ever professional newspaper beat assignment back in the day.

As originally recounted in his eyebrow-raising 2010 memoir Playing Piano in a Brothel: A Sports Journalist's Odyssey, Frei helps us better understand the events, personalities and hijinks that comprised the six-year Denver incarnation of the former Kansas City Scouts and future New Jersey Devils franchise - with some perspective on its under-appreciated history and legacy.

It's a story that traverses four separate owners, six different coaches, a constant threat of relocation, a terrible lease arrangement in a state-of the art (McNichols) arena, one meager (1978) playoff appearance (despite finishing 21 games under .500), a legendary logo - and a bombastic season of sour "Grapes."

If you're a fan of the Devils or today's Colorado Avalanche, consider this your hockey history lesson for the week!

Support the show by getting four free months of NordVPN when you use promo code GOODSEATS at checkout!

          

Playing Piano in a Brothel: A Sports Journalist’s Odyssey - buy book here

‘77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age - buy book here

Third Down and A War to Go - buy book here

EPISODE 190: Philadelphia Hockey Beyond the Flyers - With Alan Bass

When anyone brings up the topic of pro hockey in Philadelphia, the conversation quite naturally starts (and often stops) with the Flyers - one of the six franchises added to the NHL in the league's 1967 "Great Expansion," and the fastest of the bunch to capture the Lord Stanley's Cup, after only its seventh season.

But as this week's guest Alan Bass ("Professional Hockey in Philadelphia: A History") suggests, limiting the discussion to just the Flyers not only ignores the surprisingly long history of the game in the "City of Brotherly Love" prior to their arrival, but also neglects the club's lasting impact more broadly on Philly's sports scene ever since.

​For example, few fans know that the Flyers were actually not the first NHL franchise in Philadelphia. That "honor" instead went to the 1930-31 debacle known as the Quakers - a hastily relocated cellar-dwelling team from Pittsburgh (the Pirates), owned by a Depression-era bootlegger (Bill Dwyer), fronted by a temporarily retired lightweight boxing champion (Benny Leonard), and producer of one of the worst seasons in the league's 103-year history (4-36-4 record; .136 winning percentage).

Or that the city nearly got its second shot at the NHL in 1946-47, when franchise rights holders of the dormant Montreal Maroons couldn't secure funding for a new arena on the site of the old Baker Bowl.

Or even that for decades before the Flyers' arrival, Philadelphia was a reliable home to a wide range of colorful minor league franchises with names like Arrows, Comets, Ramblers, Rockets and Falcons - and even after (Firebirds, Phantoms).

And we won't even mention the World Hockey Association's home ice-challenged flirtations with the market - the inaugural 1972-73 season's Philadelphia Blazers (Civic Center/Convention Hall) and 1973-74's mid-season relocated New York Golden Blades-to-Jersey Knights (suburban Cherry Hill [NJ] Arena)!

Professional Hockey in Philadelphia: A History - buy book here

EPISODE 179: WHA Hockey "Lost & Found" - With Dennis Murphy

If we ever get around to creating a Good Seats Still Available "Hall of Fame," this week's return guest will most certainly be part of its inaugural class of inductees.

Dennis Murphy (“Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues”) is a bona fide legend in sports entrepreneurial circles - a man responsible for helping found no less than four "major" game-changing leagues across the North American pro sports landscape, including the polychromatic American Basketball Association (our previous Episode 129), and this week's focus: the raucous World Hockey Association. (The others: World Team Tennis and Roller Hockey International.)

This week's shorter-than-normal episode was originally intended to be our second full-length discussion with "Murph" - and our first exclusively devoted to the founding and operation of the WHA - until events last year conspired against it.

A scheduling snafu resulted in a shorter window of conversation than originally intended, and the recording itself was feared lost during our internal archives transfer process weeks later.

However, in the process of doing background research for our recent episode on the original Winnipeg Jets with Curtis Walker, we were lucky enough to stumble across the fully intact audio file on a redundant backup server - which we now present as the bulk of this week's episode.

What it lacks in length is more than made up with in depth and surprising detail from the now-93-year-old Murphy's still-sharp memory of hockey's "rebel league."

Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues - buy here

Game Changer: The Dennis Murphy Story - watch here

EPISODE 177: The (Original) Winnipeg Jets – With Curtis Walker

We cross the virtual border northward this week to obsess about the original incarnation of hockey's Winnipeg Jets - with author/team completist Curtis Walker ("Winnipeg Jets: The WHA Years Day By Day"; “Coming Up Short: The Comprehensive History of the NHL's Winnipeg Jets" ).

One of the twelve founding franchises in the upstart World Hockey Association's inaugural 1972-73 season, the Jets were one of only four teams to survive the entire run of the rebel league - and to ascend into the vaunted NHL after its demise in 1979.

They were also, arguably, the WHA's most successful club - winning three of the league's seven-ever AVCO Cup championships, while finishing as playoff runners-up twice. (We'll get into the story of the Houston Aeros' two titles and one finals loss in another episode!)

Walker helps us proverbially "scratch the surface" of the Jets' intriguing history in not only the WHA (including the credibility-validating, league-collective-funded signing of Bobby Hull; the Swedish-flavored "Hot Line" contributions of Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson; and a franchise-saving "Save the Jets" community campaign in 1974) - but also the National Hockey League, where the club largely struggled to reclaim their earlier glory - especially when facing their long-time regional nemesis, the Edmonton Oilers.

Of course, we tackle the delicate issue of where the original Jets' legacy should credibly reside: with the lamentable Arizona Coyotes (the franchise moved to Phoenix in 1996); the current Jets team (the relocated Atlanta Thrashers since 2011); or in the collective memories of the fans that routinely packed the rafters of the old Winnipeg Arena.

     

Coming Up Short: The Comprehensive History of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets (1979-96) - buy book here

Winnipeg Jets: The WHA Years Day-By-Day - buy book here

EPISODE 129: ABA Basketball's Origin Story – With Founder Dennis Murphy

The American Basketball Association was not founder Dennis Murphy’s original intent. 

Thwarted in his attempt to get the fast-growing city of Anaheim, CA (he was mayor of nearby Buena Park) into the fledgling American Football League during the mid-1960s, Murphy quickly pivoted his attention to basketball – reasoning that with only 12 teams in the staid, yet long-established National Basketball Association, there surely must have been room for more.

“What the hell,” Murphy told author Terry Pluto in his seminal 1990 oral history Loose Balls.  “The AFL had worked, hadn't it?  Maybe we could force a merger with the NBA."

By the end of the ABA’s ninth season in 1976, Murphy’s unwitting prescience had become reality – and along with it, a validating blueprint for how to modernize professional sports in North America.

The legendarily inveterate sports entrepreneur (Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues) joins the podcast to discuss how the iconically idiosyncratic ABA got started, as well as hints of how other future pursuits – like the World Hockey Association, World Team Tennis, the World Football League, and Roller Hockey International – would similarly come to be. 

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Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association - buy here

Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues - buy here

Game Changer: The Dennis Murphy Story - watch here

EPISODE #101: New York Yankees Broadcaster John Sterling

Legendary New York Yankees baseball play-by-play man John Sterling joins host Tim Hanlon for a cavalcade of career memories from his 50+ year journey in sports broadcasting – including a treasure trove of stops along the way with previously incarnated or otherwise defunct teams (and leagues).

Now celebrating his 30th consecutive season with the Bronx Bombers, Sterling’s unique vocal stylings have become synonymous with some of the Yankees’ most signature moments during that time – including the team’s dominant run of American League and World Series championships across the late 1990s and much of the 2000s. 

The path to becoming one of baseball’s marquee team broadcasters was far from direct, however, and we (naturally) obsess over some of Sterling’s more memorable “forgotten” gigs along the way, including:

• Falling into radio play-by-play with the NBA Baltimore Bullets as a late fill-in for Jim Karvellas;

• Becoming the almost-voice of the ABA Washington Caps (until a hasty move to Virginia to become the Squires);

• Hustling to secure radio rights to the upstart WHA New York Raiders for Gotham’s talk powerhouse WMCA - and the irony of later calling games for the NHL Islanders;

• The highs of the ABA New York, and lows of the NBA New Jersey Nets;

• “Phoning it in” for the World Football League’s short-lived New York Stars; AND

• The ahead-of-its-time Enterprise Sports Radio Network.

Check out all the great “forgotten sports” garb and gear from our awesome sponsors: SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, Streaker Sports, OldSchoolShirts.com, and 503 Sports!

Classic John Sterling audio clips courtesy of Eric Paddon; follow him on YouTube here

EPISODE #100: WHA Hockey’s New England Whalers – With Former Owner Howard Baldwin

We celebrate our 100th(!) episode with one of the founding owners of the pioneering World Hockey Association – and the man ultimately responsible for the absorption of four its teams into the NHL in the “don’t-call-it-a-merger” of 1979. 

Hollywood film producer and original New England Whalers founder/owner Howard Baldwin (Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood) joins host Tim Hanlon for a rollicking ride through the modest beginnings, death-defying life, and lasting aftermath of pro hockey’s paradigm-transforming challenger league – as well as the tortuous journey of the only US-based franchise to survive the consolidation.

Come for Baldwin’s hard-to-believe stories of the Whalers and the WHA, like:

• Winning the Avco Cup championship in the team’s (and league’s) very first (1972-73) season, despite being fourth in line for Boston Garden home dates behind the Bruins, Celtics and even the AHL Braves;

• The courtship-turned-love-affair between the Whalers and the city of Hartford that led to the club’s relocation to the WHA’s (and ultimately NHL’s) smallest TV market in 1974; AND

• Doubling as league president with the sole purpose of effecting a merger with NHL.

But also stay for tales of Baldwin’s incredible WHA after-life, including:

• Riding into the 1980s with the NHL’s “Hartford” Whalers;

• The curious interconnection between the Minnesota North Stars and the San Jose Sharks;

• Winning the 1992 Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but losing the franchise to bankruptcy six years later; AND

• Segueing into life as an Academy Award-winning Hollywood film producer.

Show your support for the show and the legendary WHA by purchasing commemorative garb from our great sponsors 503 Sports, OldSchoolShirts.com and Streaker Sports!

Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood - buy here

EPISODE #75: The World Hockey Association Hall of Fame with Tim Gassen

Buckle up for our sophomore excursion into the legendary World Hockey Association, as we chat with the passionate founder and meticulous curator of the short-lived but influential league’s official Hall of Fame, Tim Gassen. 

Physically ensconced inside the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN, as well as an expansive online digital presence, the WHA Hall of Fame is the undisputed historical authority on the brief seven-season life and wild times of the iconic 1970s-era challenger league that kicked the staid National Hockey League in the butt and reinvigorated the pro game in the process.

Gassen joins host Tim Hanlon to discuss the:

• Origins of his WHA fanaticism (sparked by childhood memories of Indianapolis Racers games);
• Wayward (and illustrative) journeys of teams like the Jersey Knights (née New York Raiders/Golden Blades, then San Diego Mariners) and the Calgary Cowboys (birthed as the Miami Screaming Eagles, converted into the Blazers of Philadelphia, then of Vancouver, before saddling up for one last rodeo in the Stampede City);
• Unmatched dominance of the Winnipeg Jets; and
• Ongoing hunt for the Hall of Fame’s holy grail of artifacts – the makeshift WHA championship trophy hoisted by the league’s New England Whalers in 1973, in lieu of the yet-to-be-completed AVCO World Trophy.

Our appreciation to this week’s sponsors: Audible, OldSchoolShirts.com, Podfly, and SportsHistoryCollectibles.com!

                

The World Hockey Association Hall of Fame: A Photographic History of the Rebel League - buy book here

WHA Gameday: 1972-1979 Game Program Stories - buy book here

1972-1979 WHA Media Guides - buy book here

Best of the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame - buy Blu-ray DVD here

Positive Waves: A History of Indianapolis Racers Hockey 1974-1979 - buy book here

WHA Logo T-Shirts from OldSchoolShirts.com - click individual shirt photos or buy here

EPISODE #69: The “Rebel” World Hockey Association with Ed Willes

Fresh off of kicking pro basketball’s establishment in the teeth with the launch of the upstart American Basketball Association in 1967, inveterate sports entrepreneurs Dennis Murphy (see also: World Team Tennis, Roller Hockey International) and Gary Davidson (World Football League) turned their attention to an even riper target of opportunity in 1971 – the monopolistic and monochromatic 12-team National Hockey League.

Their broadside against the NHL was the audaciously aspirational World Hockey Association – a seven-season 1970s-era wonder that brought a rollicking brand of ice hockey to no fewer than 27 markets across North America (not including four announced teams that relocated before even playing a game) – leaving in its wake a bevy of bounced checks, fractious lawsuits, and defunct franchises from San Diego to Cherry Hill, New Jersey.   

Amidst the league’s traveling circus of the weird (the Chicago Cougars’ 1974 playoff run ended by Peter Pan), and wonderful (the Houston Aeros’ Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe teaming for the first-ever father-son[-son!] combination in pro hockey), the WHA undeniably became the vanguard that dragged the sport kicking and screaming into the modern age by: ending the NHL’s monopoly grip on the pro game; freeing players from its reserve clause; allowing 18-year-old players to be drafted; introducing top-tier hockey to the US Sun Belt and the interior Canadian provinces; and opening up rosters to an exciting array of European talent in numbers previously unimagined. 

And, by the end of its run in 1979, ushering four new clubs – the Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers, and Hartford Whalers – into a merger-expanded NHL.

Sportswriter Ed Willes (The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association) returns to the podcast to discuss the brief but impactful legacy of hockey’s “rebel league” that gave up-and-coming stars their big-league debuts, others their swan songs – and provided high-octane fuel for some of the most spectacularly memorable moments in the history of professional hockey.

Please check out our great sponsors Audible, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com and Podfly!

The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association - buy book here

World Hockey Association apparel from Throwback Max - buy here

                

World Hockey Association jerseys from K-1 Sportswear - buy here

                

EPISODE #62: The Whaler Guys

It’s been 21 years since the National Hockey League’s Hartford Whalers abruptly bolted for the (supposedly) greener pastures of North Carolina and a rechristened life as the Carolina Hurricanes, but don’t tell that to superfans Peter Hindle and Jerry Erwin – the self-professed “Whaler Guys” – who have made it their personal mission since 2011 to keep the memory of the franchise they love alive,  and, with any luck, bring top-tier pro NHL hockey back to the Nutmeg State.

As the hosts of their eponymous weekly Hartford Public Access TV show, Hindle and Erwin are not only passionate about remembering what the Whalers used to be, but also relentlessly focused on virtually every aspect of local civic development that might help someday return the city of Hartford to the ranks of “major league” status once again.

We get into all things Whalers past (the legendary “Brass Bonanza” theme song, the iconic logo); present (XL Center renovation updates, the Guys’ Whaler-themed Connecticut state license plate initiative); and future (what current NHL markets are prime candidates for relocation, where Hartford stands against other potential franchise cities like Quebec, Houston, Kansas City, or Seattle) – as well as the Guys’ thoughts on the Hurricanes’ sudden rediscovery/re-embrace of the team’s heritage in its previous incarnation.

PLUS: why the Coyotes, Panthers and even (ironically) Hurricanes would all do better in Hartford; why Whaler jerseys remain so popular; the vision of original (WHA New England) team owner Howard Baldwin; and the two most unsung heroes in Whaler history – Peter Good and Jacques Ysaye (aka Jack Say).

Our appreciation to Audible, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com and Podfly for their sponsorship of this week’s show!

Hartford Whalers apparel and other fun stuff via Amazon - buy here