1967 NHL Expansion - Background

Background

For many years after the shakeout caused by the Depression and World War II, the NHL owners staunchly resisted applications to expand beyond the so-called "Original Six" clubs (Boston, Montreal, Toronto, New York, Detroit and Chicago). Groups representing Philadelphia (which had secured rights to the dormant Montreal Maroons franchise), Los Angeles and the AHL Cleveland Barons were each in turn given conflicting requirements that seemed to contemporary observers designed to disqualify the bids, and it was widely understood that the existing NHL owners wanted no encroachments upon their profits.

The NHL had been an early leader in television broadcasting, both in Canada and the U.S. However, by 1960 its TV contracts had expired, and the league had none until 1963. The owners saw that the televising of other sports had enhanced the images of those leagues' players, and feared that this would provide leverage at salary time. Already, players were starting to get legal help in negotiating contracts. Additionally, the league did not want to change game start times to suit the networks. In 1965, the NHL was told that it would not receive a U.S. television contract without expansion, and that the networks were considering televising games from the Western Hockey League, an ostensibly minor league that had by that time expanded into several large West Coast markets and accumulated strong rosters of players excluded from the static NHL lineups of the era.

Fears of the WHL becoming a rival major league, and the desire for a lucrative TV contract in the U.S. much like the ones Major League Baseball and the National Football League had secured, wore down the opposition; moreover, as more conservative owners retired, a younger guard more receptive to expansion, such as Stafford Smythe in Toronto, David Molson in Montreal, and William M. Jennings in New York, took power.