World Hockey Association - Legacy of The WHA

Legacy of The WHA

On the ice, the WHA teams had proven themselves to be the NHL's competitive equals, winning more games than they lost in interleague exhibition games.

The WHA had many lasting effects on NHL hockey. The NHL used to recruit virtually all players from Canada, but following the success of the Jets' Hedberg and Nilsson scouts began looking overseas for the best players that Europe could offer. Teams such as the Whalers and Fighting Saints also offered excellent opportunities for young American players, and several U.S.-born or -raised NHL stars of the early 1980s (such as Mark Howe, Rod Langway, Dave Langevin, Robbie Ftorek, and Paul Holmgren) began their pro careers in the WHA. As a result, the NHL evolved into a truly cosmopolitan league during the 1980s.

The WHA also ended the NHL policy of paying its players only a fraction of the league's profits and, combined with the abolition of the reserve clause, led to much higher player salaries. Many great stars began their careers in the WHA, including Mark Howe, Wayne Gretzky, Mike Gartner, Mike Liut, and Mark Messier. Messier was the last WHA veteran to play in the NHL; he opened his professional career with 52 games with the Indianapolis Racers and Cincinnati Stingers in 1978–79, and played his last NHL game on April 3, 2004. The final active player and official in any on-ice capacity for the league was referee Don Koharski, who started as a linesman for the WHA and retired at the end of the 2008–09 NHL season.

The WHA is also responsible for overtime to attempt to settle regular season tie games. When the WHA was founded, there was no overtime for regular season NHL games. The WHA, however, instituted a ten-minute sudden death overtime for regular season games. The first team to score would win the game, and if nobody scored in 10 minutes, it would then be declared a tie. This reduced the number of ties considerably (the largest number of ties in a WHA season was 9, while in the NHL teams routinely had 15-20 ties per season).

After the NHL-WHA merger, the NHL tried to adopt the same format, but the players wanted increased revenues for playing more minutes. Finally, after contentious negotiations, the NHL adopted a five-minute, sudden-death overtime.