World Hockey Association
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World Hockey Association
The World Hockey Association (french: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926. Although the WHA was not the first league since that time to attempt to challenge the NHL's supremacy, it was by far the most successful in the modern era. The WHA tried to capitalize on the lack of hockey teams in a number of major American cities and mid-level Canadian cities, and also hoped to attract the best players by paying more than NHL owners would. The WHA successfully challenged the NHL's reserve clause, which had bound players to their NHL teams even without a valid contract, allowing players in both leagues greater freedom of movement. Sixty-seven players jumped from the NHL to the WHA in the first year, led by star forward Bobby Hull, whose ten-year, $2.75 million contr ...
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Ice Hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a " puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender. Ice hockey is a full contact sport. Ice hockey is one of the sports featured in the Winter Olympics while its premiere international amateur competition, the IIHF World Championships, are governed by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for both men's and women's competitions. Ice hockey is also played as a professional sport. In North America as well as many European countries, the sport is known simply ...
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Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The Avalanche play their home games at Ball Arena, which they share with the NBA's Denver Nuggets and Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League. Founded in 1972 as the Quebec Nordiques, the team was one of the charter franchises of the World Hockey Association. The franchise joined the NHL in 1979 as a result of the NHL–WHA merger. Following the 1994–95 season, they were sold to the COMSAT Entertainment Group and relocated to Denver. During their first season in Denver, the Avalanche won the Pacific Division and went on to sweep the Florida Panthers in the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals. The Avalanche are the first major professional sports championship a Denver-based team brought to the city. In the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals, the Avalanche defeated the ...
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American Basketball Association
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a major men's professional basketball league from 1967 to 1976. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger, American Basketball Association–National Basketball Association merger in 1976, leading to four ABA teams joining the National Basketball Association (NBA) and to the introduction of the 3-point shot in the NBA in 1979. League history The ABA was conceived at a time stretching from 1960 through the mid-1970s when numerous upstart leagues were challenging, with varying degrees of success, the established major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, major professional sports leagues in the United States. Basketball was seen as particularly vulnerable to a challenge; its major league, the National Basketball Association, was the youngest of the Big Four major leagues, having only played 21 seasons to that point, and was still fending off contemporary challenging leagues (it had been less than fi ...
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Gary Davidson
Gary L. Davidson (born August 13, 1934) is an American lawyer and businessman who is based in Orange County, California. Davidson co-founded and served as the first president of the World Hockey Association and co-founded, with former Buena Park Mayor Dennis Murphy, the American Basketball Association. He also founded the World Football League where he was the league's first president and commissioner. He was a star basketball player at Garden Grove, Calif., High School and attended the University of Redlands, Calif. Honours In 1973 and 1974, the Gary L. Davidson Award was presented to the most valuable player of the World Hockey Association. In 2010, Davidson was part of the initial group of individuals elected to the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame The World Hockey Association Hall of Fame is an independent organization dedicated to honoring the World Hockey Association (WHA) which operated from 1972 to 1979 as a major professional ice hockey league. Officially pa ...
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Dennis Murphy (ice Hockey)
Dennis Arthur Murphy (September 4, 1926 – July 15, 2021) was an American sports entrepreneur who helped co-found the American Basketball Association (1967–1976) (with Gary Davidson), the World Hockey Association (1972–1979), the original World Team Tennis (1973–1978) with Larry King, Roller Hockey International (1992–1999), and several other trend-setting amateur and professional sports concepts and events. Each of his innovations exhibited ground-breaking marketing and promotional tactics, new rules, and a style of play that forced the evolution of the entrenched incumbent. Among the many visionary rules and promotional concepts introduced by Murphy include the 3-point shot (ABA), the Slam-Dunk Contest (ABA), team cheerleaders (ABA), the first $1 million contract (WHA), and he paved the path for the ever-growing wave of European and Russian hockey players that now play in North America. Murphy's WHA and the ABA competed directly with the entrenched National Hockey Leagu ...
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Avco World Trophy
The Avco World Trophy, also known as the Avco Cup, is the playoff championship trophy of the defunct World Hockey Association (1972– 1979). The trophy's naming rights were sold to the former Avco Corporation (a name originally derived from "Aviation Company"), a defense contractor who bought the rights to advertise their consumer finance division. The trophy was mocked by some for its corporate sponsorship and never developed anything approaching the significance and sentiment of the Stanley Cup, its National Hockey League rival. Still, the cup's design was often seen as creative in that it involved a freely-floating etched crystal globe embedded in the "stem" of the cup. The cup was designed by Frank Bonnerkopf of Boise, Idaho. The trophy was donated to the new league in 1972 along with approximately $500,000 by the Avco Financial Services Corporation, and became the first major sports league championship trophy to bear the name of a private corporation. Three Avco trophies exi ...
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Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference, and play their home games at PNC Arena. The franchise was formed in 1971 as the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Whalers saw success immediately, winning the Eastern Division in the WHA's first three seasons and becoming the inaugural Avco World Trophy Champions to cap off the 1972–73 season. The Whalers again competed for the World Trophy in 1978, this time falling short to the Winnipeg Jets in a rematch of the 1973 Finals. The franchise joined the NHL in 1979 as part of the NHL–WHA merger, renaming themselves the Hartford Whalers. The team relocated to North Carolina in 1997, rebranding themselves as the Hurricanes. Carolina advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 2002, where they were ...
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Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, List of United States cities by population, the 41st-most populous city in the U.S., and the largest city of the Research Triangle metro area. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak, oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city. The city covers a land area of . The United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau counted the city's population as 474,069 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. The city of Raleigh is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who established the lost Roanoke Co ...
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Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the 2010 United States census have indicated that Hartford is the fourth-largest city in Connecticut with a 2020 population of 121,054, behind the coastal cities of Bridgeport, New Haven, and Stamford. Hartford was founded in 1635 and is among the oldest cities in the United States. It is home to the country's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest publicly funded park (Bushnell Park), the oldest continuously published newspaper (the ''Hartford Courant''), and the second-oldest secondary school (Hartford Public High School). It is also home to the Mark Twain House, where the author wrote his most famous works and raised his family, among other historically significant sites. Mark Twain wrote in 1868, "Of all the beautifu ...
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Winnipeg Jets
The Winnipeg Jets are a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and is owned by True North Sports & Entertainment, playing its home games at Canada Life Centre. The Jets were established as the Atlanta Thrashers on June 25, 1997, and began play in the 1999–2000 NHL season. True North Sports & Entertainment then bought the team in May 2011, and relocated the franchise to Winnipeg prior to the 2011–12 season, making them the first NHL franchise to relocate since the Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997. The team was renamed the Jets after Winnipeg's original WHA/NHL team, which relocated after the 1995–96 season due to financial issues to become the Phoenix (later Arizona) Coyotes. History Original Winnipeg Jets (1972–1996) On December 27, 1971, Winnipeg was granted one of the founding franchises in the World Hockey Ass ...
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Atlanta Thrashers
The Atlanta Thrashers were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta. Atlanta was granted a franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL) on June 25, 1997, and became the League's 28th franchise when it began play in the 1999–2000 season. They were members of the Southeast Division of the NHL's Eastern Conference, and played their home games at what is now known as State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta. The Thrashers qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs in the 2006–07 season, after winning the Southeast Division, but were swept in the first round by the New York Rangers. In May 2011, the Thrashers were sold to Canadian-based ownership group True North Sports & Entertainment. The group moved the franchise to Winnipeg, which became the second incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets (the first incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets relocated to Phoenix in 1996 to become the Coyotes). The sale and relocation were approved by the NHL on June 21, 2011. With the sale and relocation ...
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Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,607 and a metropolitan population of 834,678, making it the sixth-largest city, and eighth-largest metropolitan area in Canada. The city is named after the nearby Lake Winnipeg; the name comes from the Western Cree words for "muddy water" - “winipīhk”. The region was a trading centre for Indigenous peoples long before the arrival of Europeans; it is the traditional territory of the Anishinabe (Ojibway), Ininew (Cree), Oji-Cree, Dene, and Dakota, and is the birthplace of the Métis Nation. French traders built the first fort on the site in 1738. A settlement was later founded by the Selkirk settlers of the Red River Colony in 1812, the nucleus of which was incorporated as the City of Winnipeg in 1873. Being far inland, the local cl ...
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