From the Archives: “The History - Backgammon, Hull And Hawerchuk”

The following THN Archive story by the late Reyn Davis gives readers an inside look into 

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“The History: Backgammon, Hull And Hawerchuk”

November 26, 1982 – Vol. 36, Issue 8

By Reyn Davis

"One warm fall day in the city of Indianapolis, three wealthy Canadians were meeting to discuss the future of Wayne Gretzky.

Drinking wine at $400 a bottle, much to the chagrin of at least one member of the party, Michael Gobuty and Barry Shenkarow, owners of the Winnipeg Jets were negotiating with Nelson Skal-bania, owner of Indianapolis Racers and the man to whom the 17-year-old Gretzky had signed a personal services contract.

The Jets were offering Skalbania $250,000 plus one-seventh of the hockey team.

“Tell you what,” said Skalbania, a Vancouver resident. “I’ll play you (Shenkarow) one game of backgammon. If you win, you get Gretzky; if I win, I get the Jets.”

In either case, Winnipeg would have got Gretzky.

Shenkarow refused the offer and Gretzky found his way to Edmonton and Peter Pocklington.

Later, Skalbania and Shenkarow decided to play backgammon anyway.

“I beat him nine out of 10 games,” said Shenkarow. “But you know what? He won the first.”

The Jets. Few teams have had such a colorful history in such a short time. They were the scourges of the World Hockey Association, winning three championships and reaching the final on two other occasions in the seven-year history of the league.

Appropriately, the Avco Cup is permanently displayed in Winnipeg Arena.

Of all their accomplishments on the ice, the one that attests most triumphantly to their magnificence as a team was a 5-3 victory over the Soviet Nationals on Jan. 5, 1978.

The feat has never been matched by a North American club team.

Off the ice, the Jets have been as equally exciting. Their pursuit of Bobby Hull, orchestrated by Ben Hatskin, the founder, raised. world attention.

Then, in 1974, corporations, children, the city and men and women of all walks of life, saved the club from financial ruin by raising almost $1 million in three weeks.

Non-refundable shares of the club were even held in the names of dogs and cats as the money poured into the campaign.

Ingenuity made the team go. Searching for talent, they leaned on a Winnipeg doctor studying in Stockholm to recruit the best players in Scandanavia.

Before it became fashionable, the Jets had Swedes and Finns in their lineup. The result was a curious, entertaining style of play that could best be described as “Euro-Canadian,” featuring the speed and finesse of Europeans and the determination of Canadians.

They became world travellers, conducting two training camps in Europe, attending the Izvestia Cup in Moscow and playing a) series of exhibition games against the Soviet Nationals in Japan.

Dr. Garry Wilson, an orthopedic surgeon, is probably the best raw recruiter of talent the team has ever had. His discoveries included the likes of Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Kent Nilsson, Lars-Erik Sjoberg and Willy Lindstrom.

The lure of the National Hockey League brought more changes. Private owners evolved who led the charge into the NHL, though the expense was more than money.

Their championship lineup was decimated. Crippled, they entered the NHL, where they suffered from the indignities of their forced mediocrity.

They set a record that grates at their soul to this day, 30 games they played without a win, smashing a record for futulity previously set by Kansas City Scouts. From Oct. 17, 1981, until Dec. 23, 1981, they went without a win.

“I die a little every time we lose,” said Tom McVie, their coach who did not survive the streak, neither did Billy Sutherland. He ’’ lasted only three games.

But they would not stay down for long.

Buoyed by general manager John Ferguson’s guile, the Jets made 13 lineup changes and hired their ninth coach, Tom Watt, and produced a team that went from 9-57-14 in 1980-81 to 33-33-14 in 1981-82.

They became the most improved team in NHL history.

Their new-found pride was personified in the play of 18-year-old Dale Hawerchuk, who became the youngest player in NHL history to accumulate more than 100 points (103) and ran away with Rookie-of-the-Year honors.

Today, the Jets are basically the same team they were a year ago. Their only rookies are a left winger, Brian Mullen, from the University of Wisconsin and a massive defenseman, Wade, Campbell, a 6-5, 232-pound giant from the University of J Alberta.

Any improvement as a team is expected to come from within. Their rookies of a year ago are all wiser, stronger and more aware of what it takes to win in the NHL. The group’s members are centers Thomas Steen, Scott Amiel and Hawerchuk, left winger Bengt Lundholm, right winger Paul MacLean and defenseman Tim Watters.

Ferguson has used every conceivable method to build a team that probably ranks among the top dozen in the league.

He used the waiver draft to snatch two defensemen, Serge Savard and Craig Levie, out of the grasp of Montreal Canadiens. He signed left winger Doug Smail, defenseman Don Spring and goaltender Doug Soetaert, right winger Lucien DeBlois, and Lundholm as free agents.

He traded for goaltender Eddie Staniowski, MacLean and defenseman Bryan Maxwell and drafted the likes of defenseman Dave Babych, center Dave Christian, Watters, Hawerchuk, Arniel, Mullen and right winger Jimmy Mann.

Throwbacks to the WHA days are right winger Willy Lindstrom, signed in 1975, and left winger Morris Lukowich, acquired in the Houston purchase of 1978.

Lukowich was one of five Houston Aeros whose contracts were bought when the Texas franchise became yet another victim on the WHA’s long list of casualities.

The same package included Terry Ruskowski, Scott Campbell, Rich Preston and John Gray.

“We had to do something,” said Shenkarow, now the president of the Jets. “We had just bought the team for $400,000. We paid all outstanding bills, including one for $68,000 owed to an airline. We weren’t aware of that one. Anyways, we’re losing Hedberg and Neilson to New York and we had to keep a team together.

They did. And once again the Jets were WHA champions, knocking off the favorites from Edmonton, led by Gretzky, in six games of a best-of-seven final.

Graciously, the Jets have never forgotten their roots. The corridors of Winnipeg Arena are adorned with life-size photos of that era.

A football great, Annis Stukus, was the team’s first general manager. He was followed by Rudy Pilous and Ferguson.

Nine men have coached the Jets, including Hull, Nick Pilous, Bobby Kromm, Larry Hillman, McVie, Sutherland and Mike Smith. Watt is the ninth and club’s first winner of Coach-of-the-Year honors in the NHL.

Undoubtedly, the line of Hull, Nilsson and Hedberg was the prettiest to watch. Their whirling rushes up the ice were a thing of beauty. Often, as many as six or seven passes would be traded before a shot on goal.

They captivated crowds at home and away. They brought science back to hockey.

The Swedes were also treated unmercifully by their opponents, some of whom turned into absolute ogres in their presence.

Hull grew so disgusted at one point he announced he wouldn’t play again until the WHA cracked down on violence. His strike lasted only one game.

But he achieved world wide attention for his stand against violence. And hockey became a better game."