Bill Hunter—Wild Bill—Page 2

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Change Places

For their first two seasons, the Oilers played their home games in Hunter’s Edmonton Gardens, averaging about 3,800 fans per game. But Hunter pushed for the City of Edmonton to build a major-league arena, a vision that became reality. The Oilers would play the 1974-75 season at Northlands Coliseum.

"Relatively lavish for its time, it [Northlands Coliseum] was designed not to give the WHA’s Oilers a fancier home rink but to attract an NHL franchise to the city," wrote Douglas Hunter in The Glory Barons.

"When construction began in 1973, there was no guarantee that the WHA, let alone Billy Hunter’s humble Oilers, would survive more than a season or two. But as the WHA and the Oilers hung in, the city, by default, came to bank on the Oilers’ potential to cross over into the NHL as its means of bringing truly big-league hockey to Northlands."

The NHL would absorb four teams – Edmonton, Quebec, Winnipeg and Hartford – after the WHA’s last season in 1978-79. Today, of those four, Edmonton is the only city left with a team.

The Oilers won just one WHA playoff series in seven seasons. Still, Hunter set the foundation for success in other ways, as the Edmonton franchise was the league’s all-time leader in attendance.

Love of the Game  

Hunter also played the game as a member of the Notre Dame College Hounds, a junior team in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. After serving in the Second World War, he went into the sporting goods business in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, where he and a partner revived the North Battleford Beavers senior hockey club.

Hunter eventually saw an opportunity in Edmonton, where he owned, managed and occasionally coached the Edmonton Oil Kings. In 1966, the Oil Kings won the Memorial Cup, junior hockey’s top prize.

In 1983, Hunter tried to bring the St. Louis Blues to his native Saskatoon after hearing the club was for sale. But the NHL was unconvinced such a small market would be viable.

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