Page 22, May 20, 1979 - Sunday News

Hats off for the WHA

by Jim Kearney

_ By the.time this prose piece lands on your
doorstep, it’s entirely possible the-Avco Cup will

have been won for the final time; the World
Hockey Association will have joined the Edsel,
the buggy whip, the World Football Leagueandthe
B.C. Liberal party in a long list of inventions
whose time has come ... and gone.

Once the Winnipeg-
Edmonton playoff is ended,
the WHA officially - dies.
And considering the game is
hockey, it’s somewhat fitting
that two Canadian-based
teams got to play the final
series; that the burial is on
Canadian soil in a_ cool
prairie spring; and not
during a heat wave in some
suburb of Birmingham, Ala.

Your agent was there for
the birth, but because of
circumstances beyond his
control, wasn't able to be on
hand for the end. Seven
seasons the WHA survived.
Not a long ‘life, but an in-
teresting one.

And all the players in the
NHL who ‘today drive
Cadillacs and smoke dollar

cigars should be wearing.

black armbands this week to
mourn the passing of their
great emancipator.

AVERAGE UP

When the WHA came into
being, the average NHL
salary was less than $30,000
a season. Today it is $96,000.

While there is no hilarity
in the passing of the alter-
nate employer whose very
presence made them wealthy
men, the beginnings of the
WHA were pure hilarity.
How else could it be with a
league born right across the
street from Disneyland? .

The delivery room was
Suite 1246 of the Royal
Court Hotel, a sort of
Hollywood modern version
of Hampton Court Palace,

on a sunny Saturday in >

February, 1972.

Right then the league
looked as unteal as_ the
hotel. Reporters on the
premises immediately
dubbed it the Wishful
Hockey Association.
Fantasyland, they wrote,
had crossed the street and
pupped.

1,000 DRAFTED

On that weekend, the
franchises were sorted out,
the down payments were
made and the league con-
ducted its first player draft.
It last two days, went 121
rounds and selected 1,037
players. It would have

reached 1,100, but the list of .

prospects from Outer
Mongolia was delayed in the
mail.

Bobby Orr was the 994th
pick. Phil Esposito was 997
and his brother tony made it
as a sort of landmark draft -
No. 1,000. At this point it
was all for laughs, especially
when the last man picked
was a chap in retirement
named Gordie Howe. .

' Little ‘did they or anyone
else think that in another
year, in order to play with
his two sons, Mark and
Marty, Howe would unretire‘
himself and give the new
league a second shot of
instant incredibility.

The first shot was in-
jected, when Bobby Hull
skipped out of Chicago and
into Winnipeg. The planning
of that coup was completed

Edwin Barclay’s

Hollyburn Country Club

Each clinic consists of
5 Two-Hour Lessons
Monday to Friday.

For all calibre of players from beginner to advanced.

Only 4 persons per coach
Commencing every Monday in June, July, and
August.

Cost per person $70
uniors $65

Each course includes basic strokes - strateg

drills and individual instruction. Courses un ander
Edwin Barclay - a C.T.A. Level IV Coach, Head
Pro Hollyburn C.C. Member of Canadian Tennis

Coaching Certification Committee,

coaching experience.

20 years

Edwin Barclay’s Tennis Clinics
950 Crosscreek Road
West Vancouver

922-9413

there, on the doorstep of
Disneyland, and, im-
mediately announced at a
press conference.

Staged in. 80-degree
sunshine, beside a swimming
pool, it had Miss World
Hockey in attendance.
When everyone got a look at
her, they knew the league
motto would be Think Big.
Her dimensions were 42-24-
36.

MISS WHA GONE

Other targets were an-
nounced: Ken Dryden, Stan

Mikita, Gerry Cheevers, |

Brad Park and Derek
Sanderson. As the world
knows, they got Cheevers
and Sanderson, as well as
Hull. Nobody knows to this

day, however, what hap-
pened to Miss World
Hockey.

Further adding to the
unreality was the hulking
presence of a mystery man

- from Essen, West Germany.

He looked like a younger
and no less corpuient Alfred
Hitchcock and talked like
Curt Jurgens -- “Dere are
vays of getting hockey
players from Eastern Europe
-- hard currency and
knowing ze right people,
ja.”).

. Al Kaczmarek was his
name and that’s just the way

he talked. He had a deal with

the WHA. For an in-
disclosed iprice, he was to
deliver an assortment of
Russian Czech stars, which
the league would then
spread among such now
unmemorable teams as the
New York Golden Blades,
Chicago Cougars, Cleveland
Crusaders, Los Angeles
Sharks and Miami
Screaming Eagles.

He returned to Germany
right after the meeting and
that was the last heard from
him. The late Scotty Munro,
who was to have put a team

- into Calgary but later backed

ouit, was delegated to fly to
Germany a few days later to
accompany Al in _ his
wheeling and dealing.

EVEN JAMES BOND

Scotty was never known
for a great sense of humor,
ut m those Disneyland
surroundings even he had to
step out of character in case
he and Kaczmarek got
pinched for player-napping

a

on the wrong side of the Iron .

Curtain, he announced he’d
made .arrangements for
James Bond to come in and
get him out of the cold.

How so, he was asked.

San Francisco - that

“Because I have the ex-

‘clusive rights to his ser-

vices,” -Munro riposted. “I
drafted him in the 9ist
round.”

Scotty’s ‘Calgary operation
didn’t get to the starting
gate. Neither did the one in
the
league’s inventor, Gary
Davidson, appropriated for
himself as payment for his
organizational services.

Munro looked at the
suddenly ballooning. salary
structure the WHA touched
off, found the numbers
didn’t add up for the 6,000
seats in the Calgary arena,
and waved goodbye.

Davidson had no plans
whatsoever to operate a
team in San Francisco. He
was looking for a buyer. An
eager group from Quebec

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City obliged him, in the sum
of $250,000, and lugged the
franchise off to the la belle
province.

As reporters chuckled at
such planned innovations as
hockey sticks in team colors,
fluorescent pucks in. biaze
red, blue ice and the selling
of decals on everything from
the boards to helmets,
Munro wagged a finger and
warned:

“Don't laugh. Call us
Mickey Mouse if you want,
but look across the street
and you'll see he made it
pretty big.” .

The analogy didn’t work
out. The WHA never made it

any sort of big. Doomed
from the start, it was just a
matter of time until it played
its final game. The time, as it
turned out, was + mid-May,
1979.

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