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Cincinnati Stingers Historical
Society is a non-profit
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In 1972, a new major
hockey league sprung up known as the World Hockey
Association. The rebel league was organized by Gary
Davidson and Dennis Murphy, who were also the same
entrepreneurs that established the moderately successful
American Basketball Association. The WHA hoped to
capitalize on a number of major cities that were devoid
of NHL teams. The league became an attractive option for
many NHL players because the WHA were offering players
large contracts and did not recognize the reserve
clause. One of the first large contracts was a ten-year
deal given to NHL superstar Bobby Hull worth $1.75
million. With the average NHL player salary hovering
around $22,000 per year, a million-dollar hockey
contract was unheard of at the time.
After a few years of establishing itself and creating
its own identity, the WHA continued to grow. One pivotal
reason for the league's growth was that there were new
arenas being built in cities devoid of a major league
hockey team. These cities wanted tenants. So while the
NHL was more demanding in setting forth conditions for
entry into their league, the WHA saw opportunity. As
long as an attractive arena was located in the city of
question, the WHA would gladly accept a franchise bid.
Meanwhile Cincinnati lawyer Brian Heekin and a young
Bill DeWitt Jr. set out to bring a major league hockey
team to the Queen City. The DeWitt name was well known
in Cincinnati due to the fact that Bill DeWitt Sr. was a
former owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Bill DeWitt Jr.
began to follow in his father's footsteps by investing
in the ABA's Kentucky Colonels and becoming a minority
owner of the American Hockey League's Cincinnati Swords.
He and Brian Heekin began eyeing an NHL team. The only
problem was that they had no arena. City officials
agreed to subsidize a new arena for an NHL expansion
team only, but DeWitt and Heekin would ultimately lose
in their bid for an NHL expansion team.
Despite the failure of landing an expansion team, the
NHL did place Cincinnati at the top of the list for
future considerations. The problem was that the NHL had
no plans to expand in the near future. So DeWitt and
Heekin turned to the World Hockey Association with hopes
that the two major leagues would eventually merge.
However, city officials were not thrilled with the
prospect of building a new arena for a team that played
in a rebel league barely two years old. If Heekin and
DeWitt wanted an arena for a WHA team, they'd have to
come up with the cash on their own.
After eighteen long months, local banks agreed to buy
$20 million in construction bonds for a new arena to be
opened in time for the 1975-76 hockey season. On May 6,
1973, the World Hockey Association granted it's first
expansion club to Cincinnati. Heekin would be in charge
of the building while DeWitt would run the team and be
the exclusive negotiator of player contracts.
Since the Cincinnati club had no place to play until
1975, the franchise remained sidelined until the opening
of their new building. Despite the downtime, the
organization still participated in the amateur drafts
and signed players to minor league contracts leading up
to their inaugural season. Some players were sent to the
Hampton Gulls of the Southern Hockey League, while
others would be loaned out to other WHA clubs. For
instance, Dennis Sobchuk and John Hughes were both sent
to the Phoenix Roadrunners for the 1974-75 season and
would play there until the Cincinnati club was ready to
reclaim them. It was in 1974 when Cincinnati adopted the
team nickname "Stingers".
When the club finally hit the ice the reception was
average at best. For their first season, the club's
attendance would go up and down with some nights pulling
in over 10,000 fans while other nights they would draw
only 3,000. By the end of their inaugural season the
Stingers averaged about 7,700 fans per game. While the
average increased slightly for the following season,
the Stingers draw was never huge. The brand of hockey
that the WHA offered
was a far tougher sell then the NHL. That coupled with the fact that
league was highly unstable. Talks about a merger
appeared between the WHA and the NHL following the
1976-77 season. Stingers owner Bill DeWitt Jr. and New
England Whalers owner Howard Baldwin led the effort for
the WHA and an agreement was reached that would have put
the Cincinnati Stingers along with the New England
Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton
Oilers and Houston Aeros in the NHL for the 1977-78
season. All six WHA clubs would remain intact and play in an NHL division together. This division would then
slowly evolve towards a full interlocked schedule in the
senior league over five years, but the proposal
ultimately failed when NHL owners voted on the merger.
The merger failed by one vote.
The WHA and the Stingers limped through two more seasons
and by the final season (1978-79), the league which at
one point had fourteen teams was now down to six. A new
merger proposal was set forth and eventually accepted by
the NHL. The new merger proposal saw the New England
Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton
Oilers shift to the NHL. Stingers ownership had the
opportunity to join the NHL but, along with the
Birmingham Bulls, they accepted a buy-out fee instead.
Both clubs were given a cash payment of $3.15 million
each. Cincinnati's players would then be distributed
among Edmonton, Quebec, New England and Winnipeg. The
other existing NHL teams then stepped in and had the
option of reclaiming the rights to most of the players
that they had lost to WHA clubs.
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