1978-79 WHA Season

By Wikipedia

The 1978-79 season was the seventh and final regular season of the now defunct World Hockey Association (WHA). Prior to the start of the season, the Houston Aeros folded leaving seven teams to start the season, but only six finished. The Indianapolis Racers folded after 25 games on the 15th of December, 1978. The remaining six teams each played 80 games.

See also: Statistical Leaders for 1978-79, Complete League Attendance

The dying WHA would go to almost any length to try and stay afloat. The NHL had rules regarding the age of players that could play while the WHA didn't. Nelson Skalbania, the owner of Indianapolis Racers, signed the 17 year old future super-star, Wayne Gretzky to, at that time, a whopping personal contract worth between 1.125 and 1.75 million dollars over 4 to 7 years. Skalbania, knowing that the WHA was fading, felt owning the young star was more valuable than owning a WHA team. Eight games into the season, though, Skalbania needed cash and liquidated his greatest asset to his old friend and former partner, Peter Pocklington, owner of the Edmonton Oilers. Pocklington purchased Gretzky and two other Indianapolis players, goaltender Eddie Mio and forward Peter Driscoll paying $700,000 for the contracts of the three players, although the announced price was actually $850,000. On Gretzky's 18th birthday, the 26th of January, 1979, Pocklington signed him to a 21 year personal services contract worth between 4 and 5 million dollars, the longest in hockey history. Gretzky would go on to capture the Lou Kaplan Trophy for rookie of the year, finish third in league scoring, and help the Oilers to first overall in the league. Unfortunately Gretzky couldn't help the Oilers win the Avco World Trophy as the Winnipeg Jets won their third overall and second in a row.

After the end of the season, an agreement was reached whereby four of the teams, the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets and New England Whalers would be admitted to the National Hockey League (NHL) as expansion teams for the 1979-80 NHL season, and the WHA would cease operations. The Cincinnati and Birmingham franchises were paid to disband.

Key: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, PIM = Penalties in Minutes
* Indicates teams that qualifies for the playoffs
+ Indicates teams that qualified for the best of three quarterfinals
x Ceased operations after 25 games.

Avco World Trophy Playoffs

The top five teams in the league qualified for the playoffs. The 4th and 5th place teams started in a best-of-three quarterfinal series, while the top three finishers received byes into the semifinals. In the semifinals, the 1st place team played the 4th/5th winner, while 2nd place played 3rd place. Both semifinal series were best-of-seven. Since the 2nd and 3rd place teams knew they'd be playing each other in the semifinals, they started their series while the 4th/5th mini-series was still going on. The finals, like the semifinals, were best four-out-of-seven games.

The Winnipeg Jets defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4 games to 2, to win the last Avco Cup. The final game was played at the Winnipeg Arena, a 7 to 3 final score in favor of the Jets. Rich Preston won the AVCO Playoffs MVP award for leading the Jets to the final championship over the Edmonton Oilers. Oiler Dave Semenko scored a late goal in the deciding game that proved to be the last goal scored in the WHL.

WHA All Star Game

The WHA played a series of three games against Moscow Dynamo in place of the annual World Hockey Association All-Star game. This series saw 50 year old Gordie Howe playing on the same line with WHA rookie Wayne Gretzky. The WHA won all three games:

These were the lineups for the game:

WHA Bibliography
The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association by Ed Willes
The Complete Historical and Statistical Reference to the World Hockey Association by Scott Adam Surgent
WHA Pro Hockey '75 - '76 by Dan Proudfoot
WHA Media Guides (each team published one each year)

These and many other WHA items can be found at eBay - check our links on the far right of this page!