Winnipeg Jets: A Look Back

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Winnipeg Jets: A Look Back
by Eric Legault, Winnipeg Correspondent

What a year. A storied, tearful, dramatic year. A lame duck year, no less. The LAST year that the Winnipeg Jets will play in the brutal climes of the capital of Manitoba, home to game-show legend Monty Hall.
Alas, the valiant attempts of generous fans opening their hearts and pocketbooks in the Save the Jets Campaign couldn't 'make a deal' (nor could John Loewen, head failure of the Manitoba Entertainment Complex group), and in the end the city, the province, and its people had to settle for a consolation prize (the Manitoba Moose). Now, their beloved group of shinny experts are moving into shiny white, stucco bungalows perched gloriously in the midst of suburban Phoenix, replete with an abundance of back-yard, desert-front acreage baking in the heat of a Southern Arizona landscape infested with piles of coyote dung.
Currently, the Winnipeg Arena, that bastion of mid-winter entertainment and lightning rod for the hopes and dreams of thousands of fans and young hockey warriors across the Eastern Prairies, sits silent and empty on Maroons Road. Only the Avco Cup banners, the retired jerseys of the Golden Jet and Thomas Steen, and myriad stains of spit lining the sides of the boards in front of the players benches serve as reminders that professional hockey was once played here. It all started with a Little League That Could...
Let's harken back to June 27, 1972, shall we. Ben Hatskin, entrepreneur and former Canadian Football League player, stood on the corner of Portage and Main with thousands of fans and accomplished his dream. His goal to establish a professional hockey franchise in Winnipeg was fulfilled the instant the Golden Jet, Bobby Hull, signed on the dotted line to a then unheard of million-dollar contract. Winnipeg didn't have an NHL team, though. This was the WHA. An upstart league of twelve teams that sought to rival the NHL. But with Hull on board, Hatskin had a marquee name upon which a team and a league could be built.
While still battling in the courts with the NHL over the use of their players, the Winnipeg Jets went on to play their first game in the WHA, sans Hull, on Thursday, October 12, 1972. The very first goal was scored by captain Ab McDonald, pacing the Jets to a 6-4 victory over the New York Raiders in Madison Square Garden. Much of the Jets success in their first season can be attribute to the play of the Luxury Line - Hull, Norm Beaudin, and Chris "Pepe" Bordeleau. Although the Jets went on to finish first overall and made it all the way to the finals, the overused Luxury Line began to show its wear and tear. Utilizing this weakness, the New England Whalers won the first Avco Cup, taking the series 4-1.
Even though the Jets were successful on the ice throughout that first season, issues about the team future were already arising, a trend that would repeatedly resurface during the next 23 years. Rumours of an NHL/WHA merger began to circulate, and word was out that the Winnipeg franchise might have to relocate for the 1973-74 season. This was a rumour with a measure of truth; an average attendance of 6,056 fans was encouraging for a new team and a new league, but there were bills to pay. Fans spent the summer wondering if their promising team was here to stay.
Season two was another success, both for the WHA and the Jets. The league continued to grow, and gained even more notoriety by bringing Gordie Howe and his two sons on board to play with the Houston Aeros. Bobby Hull had a banner year, scoring 50 goals for the seventh time in his career, including his 700th goal. The Jets made the playoffs, but were swept 4-0 by the New England Whalers.
However, before the playoffs had even began, two events were brewing on the sidelines that would forever change the dynamics of the franchise. Ben Hatskin and his partners, in troubled economic waters due to hefty losses in hockey operations and stuck with an unsatisfactory lease, quietly put the team up for sale. Offers were received to move the team elsewhere, yet their first priority was to keep the team in Winnipeg. Lieutenant-Governor Jack MacKeag had the inklings of a solution, but his public ownership plan would take a few months to come to fruition. Meanwhile, Jets Director of Player Personnel Bill Robinson left for Sweden with a single-minded mission: to seek out and sign the best European players available. On retrospect, the Jets pioneering securement of European talent was a bold and brilliant move, one that would make a huge impact on the team and forever alter the landscape of North American professional hockey.
An analysis of the Jets third season draws some astounding parallels between similar events that would occur ten years later. Last year's Save the Jets Campaign (known alternately as Operation Grassroots) should have had the roman numerals II added, because an identical crusade transpired in 1974. Inter-City Gas President Bob Graham, armed with Lieutenant-Governor MacKeag's concept of a community-owned professional sports team, headed a four-man task force charged with developing a viable program to keep the Jets in Winnipeg. To buy the team for $2.3 million, $900,000 was needed immediately; $500,000 as a down payment and $400,000 as initial operating expenses. The proposal was to garner a $300,000 interest free loan from the city, the same from the province, and the rest was to be raised by local business leaders.
The fact that city council actually approved of the proposal with marginal fuss (by a vote of 29-17) might be considered an astounding act of leadership, generosity, and vision by those of us who have had to bear witness to the pathetic in-fighting and inaction characterized by city council's policies regarding the Jets over the last decade.
Good intentions aside, however, the agreement was contingent on a similar approval by the province. The province chose to dismiss the deal, a decision which foreshadowed the failure of Premier Gary Filmon's party to save the Jets in 1995, a party whose election to a sweeping majority government was based on the sole mandate of keeping the team in Winnipeg.
Graham's task force was now $600,000 short, but thanks to an extension by Hatskin, additional time was granted to come up with the money. Their task was made easier when Bill Robinson, storming into camp like a knight surrounded by fluttering banners of salvation and hope, introduced the reinforcements from Europe. Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson, two Swedish hockey stars, were officially signed to two-year contracts. These players, the first of many others that would join the Jets from abroad, created a public excitement that would give the task force a much-needed source of funding. Graham thought to tap into the public sentiment for individual donations, a proposal made feasible by surveys that showed that fans were willing to open their pocketbooks to help support a public ownership plan.
Soon after, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, an all-star defenceman from the Swedish National Team and known in posterity as "The Little General", joined the burgeoning Euro-talent of the Jets. With interest in the team now at its peak, the Save the Jets Campaign Mark I was officially launched on June 9th, 1974. Peter Warren, a radio personality with the Jets flagship station CJOB, spearheaded the campaign from the lobby of the Marlborough Hotel. Aided by Jets players, celebrities, and the Winnipeg Jets Booster Club, the group worked tirelessly to beat the July 1st deadline. In the end, they were successful, raising $629,502.51. The Jets lived to play another day.
Now economically secure, the Jets could do what they do best - play hockey. With new coach Rudy Pilous at the helm, and a fearsome new line of Hull-Nilsson-Hedberg (the Hot Line), the Jets drew record crowds with their exciting and flashy new brand of hockey. The 1974-75 season went down in history as the season Bobby Hull, emulating a unique feat by Maurice Richard, scored 50 goals in 50 games. Other standards of excellence were set as well. Hull became the WHA's new season goal-scoring record holder with 77 goals in 78 games, simultaneously besting Phil Esposito's record for the most goals ever in one major- league campaign. Moreover, Anders Hedberg set a league rookie- scoring record, besting the Whaler's Terry Caffery's mark of 39 in the WHA's first season. Individual feats of achievement aside, however, the Jets failed to make the playoffs for the first time in three years.
Over the next few years, the Jets franchise continued to soldier on. New faces, rife with talent, joined the team and entered the annals of history - Willy Lindstrom, Peter Sullivan, Ted Green, and coach Bobby Kromm. Bobby Hull drew world-wide attention with his 1975 boycott protesting the increasing amount of violence in the game. He then went on to score his 800th career goal that season. The team then started to move away from an emphasis on individual performances and focused on team play, helping the Jets set a record that season for most home-ice victories. This new team philosophy fueled the Jets, who rolled over the Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Cowboys, and Houston Aeros en route to their first Avco Cup.
A year later, February 6, 1977 would endure as one of the most glorious moments in Jets history. Anders Hedberg, with 48 goals in 48 games (although he had actually played in just 46 contests), had his sights set on being the second Jet in two years and third player in history to score 50 in 50. After scoring four goals each in the previous two games, Hedberg had over 9,000 fans at the Winnipeg Arena poised and breathlessly waiting for history to unfold. Hedberg scored number 49 against Calgary Cowboys goaltender Gary Bromley, but minutes later was felled from a hip check by Paul Terbenche. Heavily taped and in obvious pain (due to strained knee ligaments that would sideline him for four days), Hedberg returned the next period to the delight of the fans. Then, when teammate Bill Lesuk charged into the Calgary zone, Hedberg took a drop pass and wired a wrist shot past Bromley at 11:21 to enter the record books and ignite pandemonium in the Arena. His incredible three-game, eleven-goal performance was capped with an empty-net goal, breaking the Rocket's 32-year record with 51 goals in 47 games. In typical Hedberg modesty, the Jets winger said, "I know that when my name goes into the record book people will read Maurice Richard 50 goals in 50 games, Bobby Hull 50 goals in 50 games. Then they'll read Anders Hedberg and say, 'Anders Hedberg? Who is he?'"
After four years of secure operation, the first cracks in the hull of the Jets began to appear in 1978. The team's front office announced that the franchise was bankrupt. Bob Graham's experiment in public ownership had good intentions, but dubious results. Previous rumours of losing Hedberg and Nilsson to the NHL were now taken seriously; the team was not secure enough financially to hold onto their stars. The team's recovery was contingent on moving the club from the public sphere to the private arena. A new consortium of local businessman stepped up to buy the team, led by Michael Gobuty and aided by the tenacious Bob Graham, as well as Barry and Marvin Shenkarow, Harvey Secter, John Shanski, Bobby Hull and Dr. Gerry Wilson. With finances once again secure, the team matched offers made to Hedberg and Nilsson by the New York Rangers.
Yet the new business group had one major goal in mind - entrance into the NHL, a task that would prove quite troublesome. Late in the 1977-78 seasons, rumours were beginning to fly of an impending merger between the WHA and the NHL. The NHL's Board of Governors met in June of 1977 to study the proposals and begin negotiations. Yet just a week after four WHA teams tendered applications for admittance in August, a vote was held and the expansion proposal was turned down.
Thus Gobuty's group, unable to withstand the uncertainty over the team's future for only one month after forming, were forced to call a news conference in March of 1978. The logistics were that due to the lack of assurances from the NHL over the Jets admittance, it was unclear in which league they would play in the following season, although the team would remain in Winnipeg. The end result was that the Jets were now unable to compete financially with the Rangers, who had offered Hedberg and Nilsson $2.7 million in a two-year total package. The Swedish twosome were essentially free to go to the Big Apple at the end of the season. Before they left, however, they gave the city one last parting gift by helping the Jets defeat Gordie Howe and the New England Whalers to win their second Avco Cup.
The 1978-1979 season, the Jets last in the WHA, was a significant year. Another merger proposal was turned down by the NHL in June. An uncertain future began to take its toll on the WHA, and the Houston Aeros were forced to cease operations. Meanwhile, the Jets profited, purchasing twelve player contracts from the Aeros, including Terry Ruskowski and Morris Lukowich. These new players, along with a group of juniors that were signed aboard, gave the team a new look that the fans weren't accustomed to. They were talented though, and the Jets were fully prepared to defend their Avco Cup championship. Although given little chance to repeat, what hope existed was probably quashed when Hull's retirement was announced in November.
Just three weeks later, in a move to gain new direction for the troubled team, the Jets hired John Ferguson as Vice-President and General Manager. Under Ferguson's tutelage, the club continued to battle. Fergie brought in Bill Sutherland, a former Jet and old teammate from the Canadiens, as an assistant coach. Following the retirement of Ted Green in December, the Jets rallied and surged to the top of the league standings. Just as quickly, however, the Jets tumbled in February. To remedy the situation, Ferguson fired coach Larry Hillman and hired former Washington Capitals coach Tom McVie.
Off the ice, the NHL's Board of Governor's considered another merger proposal in March, and once again turned it down. This time, though, there was a huge backlash of negative sentiment from the WHA and its fans. Whatever the impetus was, the NHL reconsidered and two weeks later, by a vote of 14-3, an agreement was reached to accommodate four WHA teams contingent on the conditions inherent in the NHL's Plan of Fifth Expansion. A week after that, Ferguson announced acceptance of the terms, and Michael Gobuty and his group had fulfilled their and the fans dream of becoming members of the National Hockey League.
Back on the ice, the Jets regrouped around McVie's banner to finish third in the standings. After sweeping the Quebec Nordiques in the first round, the Jets opponents in what was to be the last Avco Cup finals series were the Edmonton Oilers, featuring a young hot-shot named Wayne Gretzky. The Jets won the first two games on the road, but split the two at home. Facing elimination in Edmonton, the Oilers regrouped with a 10-2 throttling, giving Winnipeg the chance to win the series on home ice. So it was that with the opportunity to determine their own destiny, the Jets overcame all the obstacles of the previous year to prevail over the Oilers 7-3, winning the last ever Avco Cup and laying to rest the seven-year old World Hockey Association.
Although the Winnipeg Jets will probably always be known for their legacy as an NHL franchise, the most lasting impressions were left during their days in the WHA. The Jets will always be known as the team with the audacity to lure Bobby Hull, one of the NHL's biggest stars, to an upstart league. Their European experiment and successful implementation of the European style of play set a pioneering precedent that the NHL sought to emulate in the late 80's.
Also, judging by their three Avco Cup victories in seven years, only in the WHA era could the Jets ever be considered a success, perhaps even a dynasty. Sixteen years in the NHL didn't even see the Jets advance past the second round of the playoffs. Notable NHL names like Hawerchuk, Steen, Carlyle, Selanne, and Tkachuk only gave fans an insecure sense of hope. Similarly, years of political wrangling, economic uncertainty, and roller-coaster rides up and down the standings does little to help build a dream franchise.
Sure, the current team, now officially christened as the Phoenix Coyotes, has a lot of potential. Jets supporters have heard that word before, though, and knowing the ramifications of that word intimately, they could tell you that it's dangerous to any sports fan's psyche.
Let the Torch of Mediocrity bearing the Flame of Hope be passed into the hands of Coyotes fans. True Blue Winnipeg Jets fans had their legacy and dreams fulfilled in another era.