May 6, 1973: The 1st WHA Championship

May 6, 1973: The World Hockey Association completes its 1st season, with the awarding of the Avco World Trophy, named for its sponsor, a now-defunct defense contractor.

Danny Lawson of the Philadelphia Blazers led the league with 61 goals. The following season, with the Blazers having moved to Vancouver, he scored 50. In the rest of his career, in the NHL and the WHA combined, he scored only 137.

His Blazer teammate, Andre Lacroix, was the leading point-scorer: 50 goals and a league-leading 74 assists made for 124 points. He turned out to be one of the top players in the WHA's history, but did little in the NHL.

The rebel league started with 12 teams, 6 in an Eastern Division and 6 in a Western Division. The top 4 teams in each Division made the Playoffs. In the East, the New York Raiders and the Quebec Nordiques were out; in the West, it was the Chicago Cougars and the Alberta Oilers, who changed their name to the Edmonton Oilers for the following season.

Bobby Hull of the Winnipeg Jets was given the Gary Davidson Award, named for the league's founder, as Most Valuable Player. The next season, another NHL legend joined the WHA, Gordie Howe with the Houston Aeros. Despite being 45 years old, Howe would win the Davidson Award. From then on, it was named the Gordie Howe Award. Gerry Cheevers of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the once and future goaltender of the Boston Bruins, won the Ben Hatskin Trophy, named for the Jets' founder, as the league's top goalie.

In the Quarterfinals, the Boston-based New England Whalers beat the Ottawa Nationals, the Crusaders beat the Blazers, the Jets beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, and the Aeros beat the Los Angeles Sharks. In the Semifinals, the Whalers beat the Crusaders, and the Jets beat the Aeros.

The Whalers were coached by Jack Kelley, longtime coach at Boston University, and father of TV show creator and producer David E. Kelley, who has set many of his shows in Boston. Their Captain was former Bruin defenseman Ted Green, and their roster also included former Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman Rick Ley, former Montreal Canadien center Larry Pleau, former Detroit Red Wing right wing Tom Webster, and Al Smith, a goalie for the Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

They had to share the Boston Garden with both the Bruins and the NBA's Celtics, making it hard to get favorable playing dates. Many of their games, including all of their Playoff games, were moved to the Boston Arena, now named the Matthews Arena, home ice of Northeastern University.

That's where on May 6, they played Hull's Jets in Game 5 of the Finals on May 6, looking to clinch. With Pleau scoring a hat trick, the Whalers won, 4-1, and also won the series by that margin. Typical of how disorganized the WHA was, the Avco World Trophy wasn't ready. So Green led his team around the ice, holding the trophy they'd won as regular-season champions of the Eastern Conference. Since no fans had yet seen the Avco World Trophy, there was no way for them to know the difference.

The Whalers never got so close to a league title again. They reached the WHA Finals again in 1978, but the Jets got revenge. Along with the Jets, the Oilers and the Nordiques, the renamed Hartford Whalers were the 4 teams that the NHL accepted from the WHA for the 1979-80 season. Except for the 1986 season, they never won a Playoff series in the NHL, before moving in 1997, becoming the Carolina Hurricanes.

The team that had been the Whalers reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 2002. Finally, in 2006, they won the Stanley Cup. The Oilers have won 5, between 1984 and 1990. The Nordiques moved to Denver in 1995, becoming the Colorado Avalanche, and have won the Cup in 1996 and 2001. The Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996, becoming the Arizona Coyotes. But in 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers became the new Winnipeg Jets. Through the 2020-21 season, neither the Jets/Coyotes nor the Thrashers/Jets have yet reached the Stanley Cup Finals.

(UPDATE: In 2022, the Avalanche won another Cup. In 2024, the Coyotes moved to Salt Lake City, becoming the Utah Hockey Club.)

*

May 6, 1973 was a Sunday. The NHL was running the Stanley Cup Finals at the time, and Game 4 was played at Chicago Stadium that night. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-0. The Canadiens won the series in 6 games.

Game 3 of the NBA Finals was played at Madison Square Garden. The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 87-83. The Knicks went on to win the series in 5 games. The American Basketball Association was between Games 4 and 5 of its Finals, and the Indiana Pacers beat the Kentucky Colonels in 7 games.

Football was out of season. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 11-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Bobby Murcer, Felipe Alou and Roy White each got 2 hits, to no avail.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Montreal Expos, 6-1 at Jarry Park in Montreal. Pete Rose went 0-for-5. Johnny Bench hit a home run.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 12-8 at Shea Stadium. Willie Mays grounded into a double play in the 1st inning. He was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the 3rd inning.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Hank Aaron struck out as a pinch-hitter.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the California Angels, 5-0 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Jim Plamer pitched a 5-hit shutout, outpitching Nolan Ryan. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-3, but reached base by being hit with a pitch.

* The Oakland Athletics swept a doubleheader from the Cleveland Indians, 12-0 and 7-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Ken Holtzman pitched a 5-hit shutout in the opener. Over the 2 games, Reggie Jackson went 3-for-7 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 10-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew and Carl Yastrzemski both went 2-for-4 with a walk. Rod Carew went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-0 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Mike Caldwell pitched a 2-hit shutout. Willie Stargell did not play.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Al Downing pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* And the San Francisco Giants swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs, 11-9 and 4-3. Bobby Bonds won the 1st game with a home run in the bottom of the 12th inning.

April 13, 1997: The Hartford Whalers Play Their Last Game

April 13, 1997: The Hartford Whalers defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 at the Hartford Civic Center. Since the Whalers did not make the Playoffs, this was their last game, as they were being moved to become the Carolina Hurricanes.

They were founded in 1972 as the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association -- the name reflecting not only New England's maritime tradition, but the league: WHAlers. They won the league's 1st title in 1972, and reached the Final again in 1978.

They entered the NHL in 1979, changing their name to the Hartford Whalers (and adopting the logo where the W for Whalers was easy to see, but the H for Hartford wasn't), but only won 1 Playoff series, in 1986 over fellow WHA graduates the Quebec Nordiques, and only won 1 regular-season Division title, the next season.

They played at the Boston Arena (later the Matthews Arena) in the 1972-73 season, the Boston Garden in 1973-74, and the Big E Coliseum in West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1974-75, before the Hartford Civic Center opened. A 1978 roof collapse forced them to the nearby Springfield Civic Center (now the MassMutual Center) for 2 years.

Ultimately, they left because the Hartford Civic Center -- since renamed the XL Center and now the PeoplesBank Arena -- was too small and didn't have the precious luxury boxes. It also didn't help that Hartford is about halfway between New York, with 3 NHL teams in its metropolitan area (one of which, the Rangers, replaced the Whalers with a farm team, the Hartford Wolf Pack), and Boston, with the established Bruins.

But their attendance in Raleigh has barely been enough to fill their old arena. Maybe they should have stayed put.

From 1874 to 1877, Hartford was home to the Hartford Dark Blues, of the National Association and then the National league, but the couldn't compete in the NL, and folded. The Hartford Blues played in the NFL in the 1926 season, but only in that season. The Connecticut Bicentennials played in New Haven in the North American Soccer League in the 1975, 1976 and 1977 seasons.

But with the demise of the Whalers, the only sports team in Connecticut that could even remotely be called "major league" are the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA, who have played at Mohegan Sun Arena, at the Mohegan Sun casino resort in Montville, Connecticut since 2003.

UPDATE: In 2025, the XL Center was renamed the PeoplesBank Arena.

The Whalers retired 3 uniform numbers: 2, for defenseman Rick Ley; 9, for right wing Gordie Howe; and 19, for right wing John McKenzie. In 2006, arena management also hung banners for 5, defenseman Ulf Samuelsson; 10, center Ron Francis; and 11, right wing Kevin Dineen. The Whalers did not retire that number.

The Hurricanes have retired 4 numbers: Francis' 10; 2, for defenseman Glen Wesley; 12, for center Eric Staal; and 17, for center Rod Brind'Amour. They have also removed from circulation, without officially retiring them, Howe's 9; 3, for defenseman Steve Chiasson; and 63, for center Josef Vašíček. Francis and Brind'Amour have also been elected to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

*

April 13, 1997 was a Sunday. There were 6 other games in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-4 at the CoreStates Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-3 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Buffalo Sabres, 8-3 at the Marine Midland Arena (now the KeyBank Center) in Buffalo.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Dallas Stars, 5-2 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

Football was out of season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, 132-123 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Despite the defeat, Kerry Kittles scored 40 points for the Nets.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls, 108-91 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 113-73 at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 100-98 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Shaquille O'Neal scored 39 points.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 105-97 at the San Jose Arena. The Warriors played that season there, now known as the SAP Center, while the Oakland Coliseum complex's arena was under renovation.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Oakland Athletics at Yankee Stadium, after a rainout the day before. The Yanks won the opener, 3-2. Andy Pettitte was the winning pitcher. Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams hit home runs. The A's won the nightcap, 7-4. Ariel Prieto outpitched Ramiro Mendoza. Mark Whiten hit a home run for the Yankees. Gerónimo Berroa went 4-for-5 for the A's.

* The New York Mets were swept by the San Francisco Giants in a doubleheader at Shea Stadium, 5-1 and 7-6. As with the Yankees, the Mets had been rained out the day before. Mark Gardner outpitched Mark Clark in the 1st game. Jeff Kent hit a home run for the Giants, and John Olerud hit one for the Mets.

Shawn Estes outpitched Bobby Jones in the 2nd game. Mark Lewis hit 2 home runs, and José Vizcaíno hit 1. Bernard Gilkey hit 1 for the Mets. Over the 2 games, Barry Bonds went 2-for-7 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ken Griffey Jr. went 1-for-4.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 9-0 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Jimmy Key pitched a 6-hit shutout. Jeffrey Hammonds hit 2 home runs, and Cal Ripken and Chris Hoiles also homered.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 14-5 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Anaheim Angels beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-3 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland. Eddie Murray hit a home run, but Rickey Henderson, in his only season with the Angels, did not play.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 6-4 at Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) in Cincinnati.

* A doubleheader was split at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 11-8. The Detroit Tigers led 7-0 after 5 innings, but the South Siders came back, and scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th to send the game to extra innings. Each team scored a run in the 11th. The White Sox scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the top of the 12th, and added 2 more runs. The Tigers won the 2nd game, 4-2.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros, 6-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-1 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* And the Montreal Expos beat the Colorado Rockies, 8-3 at Coors Field in Denver.

This was also the day that Tiger Woods won his 1st major golf tournament, running away with the Masters. I have a separate entry for that event.

April 11, 1980: Gordie Howe: The NHL's Oldest Player

Bobby Hull (left) and Gordie Howe

April 11, 1980: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Hartford Whalers, 4-3 at the Hartford Civic Center. Yvon Lambert scored the winning goal for Les Habitantes, 29 seconds into overtime. This allowed the Canadiens to complete a 3-game sweep of the Whalers in the 1st round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It was also -- including the Playoffs -- the 1,924th NHL game, and the 2,422nd at the major league level, for the Whalers' Gordie Howe. At the age of 52 years and 11 days, he is the oldest player in NHL history.

He had debuted with the Detroit Red Wings on October 14, 1946. So his 26-season tenure in the NHL -- with 6 years in the World Hockey Association thrown in, for a total of 32 seasons -- spanned 6 Presidents, from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter. Or, in his own country of Canada, 6 Prime Ministers, from William Lyon Mackenzie King to Joe Clark.

In 32 seasons, he had participated in 29 All-Star Games. He got the Red Wings into the Stanley Cup Finals 11 times, winning 4: In 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955. He got the Houston Aeros into the WHA Finals 3 times, winning 2: In 1974 and 1975. In 6 seasons, he won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading scorer. In 6 -- 4 of them the same -- he won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's Most Valuable Player. And he won the WHA's MVP, the Gary Davidson Trophy, in 1974. The league then renamed their MVP the Gordie Howe Trophy.

Howe scored his 545th career goal in 1963, surpassing Maurice Richard to become the NHL's all-time leader. He extended the record to 786 when he initially retired in 1971. In 1978, the Aeros traded him to the New England Whalers. When the Whalers were absorbed into the NHL in 1979, as the Hartford Whalers, it gave Howe 1 more season in the NHL, and he raised the record to 801 goals -- 975 counting the WHA. It took until 1994 for Wayne Gretzky to surpass the 801, raising it to 894, but, counting the WHA, he still trails Howe, with 940.

In 2010, appropriately enough with the Red Wings, Chris Chelios played his last game at the age of 48. That's as close as any player has come to breaking Howe's age record.

In 2021, Patrick Marleau of the San Jose Sharks surpassed Howe's record for most NHL regular-season games, 1,779 to 1,767. Including the Playoffs, he leads Howe, 1,974 to 1,924. Mark Messier trails both in regular-season games, with 1,756; but leads both with the Playoffs counted, 1,992. However... Howe-ever, add WHA totals, and, while Messier's 1st season was in that league, Howe's lead is still in place.

In 2007, the Hartford Civic Center was renamed the XL Center. (UPDATE: In 2025, it was renamed the PeoplesBank Arena.)

*

April 11, 1980 was a Friday. These other Stanley Cup Playoff games were played that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Atlanta Flames, 4-2 at The Omni in Atlanta. The next day, the Rangers beat the Flames to eliminate them from the Playoffs. It was the last game the Flames played in Atlanta: The next season, they moved to Calgary.

* The New York Islanders beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Ken Morrow, who had played for the Gold Medal-winning U.S. team in the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York just 6 weeks earlier, scored the winning goal, 6:55 into overtime. Having traded for the Kings' Butch Goring earlier in the season, the Isles eliminated the Kings the next day, and went on to win their 1st Stanley Cup.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Al MacAdam scored the winning goal, 32 seconds into overtime. This eliminated the Leafs.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-1 at the Checkerdome, as the St. Louis Arena was then known. The Blues were eliminated.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 at the Northlands Coliseum. Ken Linseman won it at 3:56 of the 2nd overtime. The Oilers were eliminated. The Flyers went on to their 4th Stanley Cup Finals in 7 seasons, but lost to the Islanders. As for Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers, in their 1st season in the NHL, their time would come, but not yet.

* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-4 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. The Sabres won the series, anyway.

There were 3 regular-season games played in the NBA:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 95-75 at the Boston Garden.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 95-91 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 108-105 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

And these games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Texas Rangers, 11-7 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Fergie Jenkins was the winning pitcher, although neither he nor Yankee starter Tommy John reached the 6th inning. Rusty Staub hit a home run for the Rangers, Bob Watson and Oscar Gamble for the Yankees. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk, and had an RBI on a groundout.

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 7-5 at Shea Stadium.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Steve Carlton outpitched Steve Rogers. Mike Schmidt and Pete Rose each went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-0 in a game shortened to 6 innings by rain. Johnny Bench went 1-for-3.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Murray went 0-for-4.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Willie Stargell went 2-for-3 with a walk.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-0 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Larry Gura pitched a 6-hit shutout. George Brett went 1-for-4, raising his batting average on the season to .143. He would raise his average to .401 in mid-September, before slipping to .390.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 10-6 at the Astrodome.

* The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-3 at San Diego Stadium (soon to be renamed Jack Murphy Stadium). Dave Winfield went 0-for-3 with a walk and an RBI groundout. Willie McCovey, in his final season, went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The California Angels beat the Cleveland Indians, 10-2 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Joe Rudi hit 2 home runs, and Rod Carew went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins, 1-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Matt Keough pitched a 4-hit shutout in this 1st month of Billy Martin-managed "Billy Ball" for the A's. Rookie Rickey Henderson went 1-for-4 with an RBI, although he didn't attempt to steal any bases.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Seattle Mariners, 10-7 at the Kingdome in Seattle. This was a wild game: It was 2-1 Jays after the top of the 6th, 5-2 M's after the bottom of the 7th, 7-5 Jays after the top of the 9th, and then Rod Craig hit a home run to send the game to extra innings. But 4 straight singles (by Alfredo Griffin, Willie Upshaw, Bob Davis and Roy Howell) and a sacrifice fly (by Otto Velez) gave the Jays 3 runs in the top of the 11th, and the M's couldn't mount another comeback.

* And the Boston Red Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers were rained out at Milwaukee County Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 10. The Brewers won the opener, 2-1. The Red Sox won the nightcap, 7-0. Steve Renko and Bob Stanley combined on a 5-hit shutout. Neither Carl Yastrzemski or Paul Molitor appeared in either game. Over the 2 games, Robin Yount went 1-for-8.

Mark Teixeira, a 1st baseman who hit 409 home runs, made 3 All-Star Games, won 5 Gold Gloves, and won the 2009 World Series with the Yankees, was born on this day.

February 5, 1980: Gordie Howe's Revenge

February 5, 1980: The greatest player in the history of hockey gets his due, from the fans who knew him the best. And the owner of those fans' team had to just sit there and take it.

Gordie Howe had debuted with the Detroit Red Wings in 1946. Between 1948 and 1966, he had helped them reach the Stanley Cup Finals 11 times, winning 4: In 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955. In 1963, he became the NHL's all-time leader in goals. When a wrist injury convinced him to finally retire in 1971, at the age of 43, he had 786 goals. At the time, the man in 2nd place, Bobby Hull of the Chicago Black Hawks, had 552.

It wasn't just the wrist injury: Howe had spent a few years feuding with the Wings' owner, Bruce Norris. While his father James E. Norris and his brother James D. Norris had built 7 Stanley Cup winners, Bruce had merely presided over the '54 and '55 champions, having done nothing to build them. Taking full control for the 1955-56 season, he became a typical sports team operator of the period, preferring to save money than to win. He broke up his championship team, and tried to build another on the cheap. Over the next 11 years, they would go 0-5 in Stanley Cup Finals.

After the 1968-69 season, Howe, arguably still the best player in the game, and already nicknamed "Mr. Hockey," discovered that he was only the team's 3rd-highest-paid player, at $45,000. Norris gave him a raise to $100,000, making him the 1st hockey player to make that much. But Norris fumed: He was one of those sports team owners who couldn't stand to have his authority challenged. To him, players were merely means to an end.

Especially angering this old-school old-boy-networker was the fact that Gordie's agent was a woman: His wife, Colleen Howe, who would eventually be known as "Mrs. Hockey." Norris blamed Colleen for Gordie being out of order enough to demand a raise. (This foreshadowed M. Donald Grant blaming Nancy Seaver for Tom's demand for a raise on the 1977 Mets.) The relationship between Norris and the Howes had begun to be poisoned, and it was all Norris' fault: If he had paid Gordie as if he was the best player in the game, all the trouble afterward could have been avoided.

When Gordie retired after the 1971 season, he was given a job in the Wings' front office. Essentially, he was just a schmoozer, shaking hands with corporate clients at their arena, the Olympia Stadium, and allowing the Wings to put his magic name on their corporate letterhead.

Baseball legend Stan Musial, when asked what he did for the St. Louis Cardinals in his nice office at Busch Memorial Stadium, smiled and said, "I don't know, but they pay me a lot of money for it!" In contrast, Gordie grumbled about not having any actual input in the running of the organization. He wasn't the head coach, or an assistant coach, or the general manager, or the director of scouting, or anything of substance. In his words, he was "vice president in charge of paper clips."

Before the 1972-73 season, the expansion New York Islanders, thinking they needed a big name to get attention in the nation's biggest market, offered to make him their 1st head coach. He turned it down. It was probably for the best: The World Hockey Association was launching at the same time, and their Quebec Nordiques offered their head coaching job to Maurice Richard, the Montreal Canadiens icon who was the NHL's all-time leading scorer until Howe. He took it, and hated it. He lost his 1st game, quit on the spot, was talked into keeping the job until they could find someone else, won his 2nd game, and left anyway, and never coached again. But that's 2 more games than Gordie ever had as a head coach.

Bill Dineen, a teammate of Gordie's on the '54 and '55 Cup winners, was named head coach of the WHA's Houston Aeros. Another '55 (but not '54) teammate, Larry Hillman, was his assistant. In the 1973 WHA Draft, Dineen took Gordie's sons Mark and Marty.

To help the WHA get better publicity -- they'd already gotten Hull onto the Winnipeg Jets, a team essentially named for him (the Golden Jet, although their uniforms were blue and had no gold), Dineen asked Gordie to come out of retirement. He was willing to get surgery on his troubled wrist, and give it a shot.

Bruce Norris told the Howes that if Gordie quit the Wings' front office and went to "the rebel league," not only would he be blackballed from the NHL, never to work in it again in any capacity, but that Mark and Marty would also be blackballed -- and since they were players just starting out, this would affect them much more. In other words, he gave Gordie and Colleen an anti-incentive that would have hurt them much more than Gordie's own blackballing would have. It may not be the biggest dick move in the history of hockey, but it's the best-known dick move in NHL history.

Bruce Norris

And it backfired. Few decisions in the history of sports have backfired this much. Gordie and Mark -- or Gordie and Marty -- became the 1st father and son teammates in professional hockey history. They played on a line together. Mark and Marty got the traditional rookie hazings, and Gordie did not use his influence to stop it. On the other hand, the sons referred to their father as "Gordie," and even called him that to his face, in their teammates' presence, knowing that if they called him "Dad," they'd never hear the end of it.

Attendance went up all over the WHA, as people wanted to see the Howes. It probably kept the league going long enough for a merger with the NHL to be plausible. The Aeros won the AVCO World Trophy as WHA Champions in 1974. And Gordie, age 46, was awarded the Gary Davidson Trophy as Most Valuable Player.

Gordie, Marty, Mark

Davidson was the founder of the league. He was also a co-founder of the American Basketball Association and the World Football League. (There would be 4 teams each from the ABA and the WHA that would be admitted to the established leagues. The WFL, on the other hand, totally flopped.)

The next season, the WHA MVP award was renamed the Gordie Howe Trophy. Gordie didn't win it again, but the Aeros again won the AVCO Trophy. They reached the Finals again in 1976, but lost to the Jets.

Meanwhile, from the time that Gordie signed with the Aeros in 1973 until 1983, the Wings made the Playoffs only once. From 1970 until 1987, they only won 1 Playoff series. From 1966, Gordie's last trip to the Finals, until 1986, 20 seasons -- ending the year Norris died, although he'd sold the team to Mike Ilitch in 1982 -- they played in only 17 Playoff games, winning 4 of them. They became known as "The Dead Things."

They moved from the Olympia, in a bad neighborhood on Detroit's northwest side, and built the Joe Louis Arena downtown, but that was about the only thing they had to draw fans. They certainly weren't caring about what Larry Aurie and Ebbie Goodfellow did in the 1930s, or what Gordie and his teammates did in the 1950s.

I'm not saying the Wings would have been appreciably better if they still had Gordie, and had drafted Mark and Marty, and had paid them all what they were worth. It would have been tough to break through in a League that had the Big Bad Bruins in Boston, the Broad Street Bullies in Philadelphia, and the Flying Frenchmen in Montreal. But at least they would have been better. Instead, Bruce Norris found out that karma's a bitch.

The 1970s were a thrilling time for performances on the ice, in both leagues. But most hockey teams, in both leagues, were struggling financially. The Aeros needed money badly, and the New England Whalers were one of the few WHA teams that had it. So they bought all 3 Howes. Gordie was still a WHA All-Star.

In the 1979 off-season, the WHA folded, and 4 of its teams were admitted to the NHL. One was the renamed Hartford Whalers. The Wings still held Gordie's NHL rights, meaning that he could not legally play for any NHL team except Detroit. And Norris still owned the Wings.

But, despite being Chairman of the NHL's Board of Governors, Norris was outflanked by a former Wings executive, now President of the NHL, John Ziegler. Gordie was allowed to play in the NHL for Hartford. In that final season, Gordie played all 80 games, scored 15 goals, raising his record total to 801 (his 174 in the WHA giving him 975), and helped the Whalers make the Playoffs.

Bruce Norris' world had fallen in on him. The Wings had become laughably bad in Gordie's absence. And building the Joe Louis Arena had put a major kink in his finances. Now, he had to watch as his blackballing of the Howes and they were welcomed back into the NHL, and not for his team.

The 1980 NHL All-Star Game was given to Detroit and its new arena, as kind of a "gold watch" for Norris, as it was clear he would soon have to sell. And when Scotty Bowman, coaching the Wales Conference All-Star Team in that game, used his prerogative to fill out the roster with non-starters, he chose 3 legends: Jean Ratelle, Phil Esposito... and the nearly 52-year-old Gordie Howe, who was introduced as "Mr. Hockey, Number 9," and got an ovation from the Detroit crowd that went on and on and on. It was a massive middle finger to Norris -- not from any member of the Howe family, but from the Detroit fans.

This was the 32nd time the NHL had held an official All-Star Game. Howe had now appeared in 23 of them. Counting the WHA, he had played in an All-Star Game in 29 of a possible 32 seasons. In this game, he assisted on a goal by Real Cloutier of the Quebec Nordiques, and the Prince of Wales Conference team beat the Clarence Campbell Conference team 6-3. Playing for the Campbell team was 19-year-old Wayne Gretzky, of another team that came in from the WHA, the Edmonton Oilers.

The previous year, Howe and Gretzky had played together on a WHA All-Star Team that played legendary Soviet club Dinamo Moscow. It was the only time that "Mr. Hockey" and the man who would surpass him as the NHL's all-time leader in goals, assists and points would play together.

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February 5, 1980 was a Tuesday. There were no other NHL games played. Baseball and football were out of season. These 6 games were played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-105 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 123-115 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 123-121 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio. Dennis Johnson scored 34 points.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Indiana Pacers, 109-108 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 31 points.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Kansas City Kings, 105-99 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* And the Utah Jazz, in their 1st season after moving from New Orleans, beat the Chicago Bulls, 116-106 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. Adrian Dantley led all scorers with 47 points.

January 18, 1978: The Hartford Civic Center's Roof Collapses

January 18, 1978: The roof of the Hartford Civic Center collapses under the weight of snow. It ends up remaining closed for 2 years while it is repaired.

It could have been a lot worse. Not only did the collapse happen in the middle of the night, when there was the least likelihood of people being hurt or killed, but, just a few hours earlier, on the night of January 17, there was a game. The men's basketball team of the University of Connecticut (a.k.a. UConn) played the University of Massachusetts (a.k.a. UMass), and won, 56-49.

The attendance at that game was 4,746, not quite halfway to the building's seating capacity of 10,507. It could have been a death toll surpassing Pearl Harbor, or the as-yet-future 9/11.

Like a lot of the sports venues built in America in the 1960s and '70s, the Civic Center was not designed well. When the City of Hartford, the building's owner, investigated, it was found that the roof's supports were not strong enough. It wasn't one snowfall that did it, it was several over the course of 6 New England Winters, from the building's opening on January 9, 1975.

At that time, it became the home of the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association, who had previously played at the Boston Garden, the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena of Northeastern University), and the Eastern States Coliseum (a.k.a. the Big E), the longtime home of the American Hockey League's Springfield Indians, in nearby West Springfield, Massachusetts, 24 miles north of downtown Hartford.

It also served as a home for UConn basketball, for games too large for the facility they had on their main campus of Storrs, the Hugh S. Greer Fieldhouse. The Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, 25 miles east of Hartford, and named for a philanthropist and civil rights activist who helped fund its construction, opened in 1990, and the Fieldhouse was converted into an indoor track facility. The NBA's Boston Celtics played 14 "home games" there before the collapse.

For 2 years, the UConn Huskies were restricted to on-campus games, and the Whalers moved 26 miles north to the Springfield Civic Center (now the MassMutual Center) in Springfield, Massachusetts. Their temporary stay there included their being brought from the WHA into the NHL for the 1979-80 season, along with the Quebec Nordiques, the Winnipeg Jets and the Edmonton Oilers. This move to the established league also led the team to change their name, to the Hartford Whalers.

The Hartford Civic Center reopened on January 17, 1980, with a capacity of 14,750 for hockey, and 15,600 for basketball. This gave it about 700 more seats than the Boston Garden. The Celtics played 2 regular-season games in Hartford in the 1979-80 season, 5 in 1980-81, and 3 per year until 1994-95. With 2 exceptions, early on, they sold out every game. They stopped because they moved from the Boston Garden to the larger arena now known as the TD Garden. But they returned for preseason exhibition games in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014.

In the 1980s, UConn's men's and women's basketball teams both became national powers, and use the building for their bigger games.

The Whalers continued to play there until 1997. New owner Peter Karmanos had wanted a bigger arena with more luxury boxes. He didn't get it. He was a multibillionaire from getting in on the computer industry early. He could have built 50 new arenas himself. But he wanted the taxpayers of the State of Connecticut to build it for him.

And so, he took the Whalers to North Carolina, renaming them the Carolina Hurricanes. First, they played the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons at the Greensboro Coliseum. In 1999, what's now named the PNC Arena opened in Raleigh, and the 'Canes were moved there. (UPDATE: In 2024, the Raleigh arena was renamed the Lenovo Center.)

In 1997, to take the Whalers' place, the New York Rangers moved their top farm team, the Binghamton Rangers, to the Civic Center, renaming them the Hartford Wolf Pack. In 2007, the building was renamed the XL Center.

A 2014 renovation did as much as could be hoped for, but no NHL team, or ownership group looking to start an expansion team, has expressed interest in moving to Hartford unless a new arena is built. And it really isn't a big market: Hartford has just 121,000 people according to the 2020 Census, which also gives it credit for a "metropolitan area" of less than 1.5 million people. The market is made smaller by the fact that the Rangers and the Boston Bruins cut into the market as well: The former's Madison Square Garden is 121 miles to the southwest, and the latter's TD Garden is 102 miles to the northeast.

UPDATE: Another renovation was undertaken, completed in 2025. The arena was then renamed the PeoplesBank Arena.

*

January 18, 1978 was a Wednesday. There were 3 games scheduled to be played in the WHA that night, and 1 involved the Whalers. But it was on the road, so it went on as scheduled:

* The New England Whalers, lost to the Edmonton Oilers, 1-0 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* The Birmingham Bulls beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 3-0 at the Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham. (now the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex).

* And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-1 at the Winnipeg Arena.

There were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The New York Islanders beat the Minnesota North Stars, 5-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 1-0 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Cleveland Barons, 7-4 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio. The Barons and the North Stars, both on the verge of bankruptcy, were merged at the end of the season, with the North Stars remaining in operation.

* The Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Rockies played to a tie, 4-4 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. This would be the only season that the NHL version of the Rockies made the Playoffs. In 1982, they moved, becoming the New Jersey Devils.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Washington Capitals, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins, the Buffalo Sabres, the Philadelphia Flyers, the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Portland Trail Blazers, 127-101 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 130-116 at the Boston Garden. Sidney Wicks had 35 points and 15 rebounds for the C's.

* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Atlanta Hawks, 108-106 at The Omni in Atlanta. Pete Maravich scored 34 points off his former team.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Buffalo Braves, 113-100 at Cob Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Indiana Pacers, 109-96 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Kansas City Kings, 126-106 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 106-104 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Washington Bullets, 113-106 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.