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A SHORT SAMPLE FROM THE BOOK

THE NUMBERS ARE ABOUT TO CHANGE:
INTRODUCING WAYNE GRETZKY

The Indianapolis sun blazed in the summer of 1978, and I squinted in my backyard as I tried to read a biography of goaltending pioneer Jacques Plante (who also ended up in the WHA). I took a break and turned to the Indianapolis newspaper, hoping to read of progress in the seemingly endless WHA-NHL merger talks. Instead, a large display advertisement seemed to scream something like: The numbers in hockey are about to change. The photo showed the back of a Racers jersey, with a “99” stitched onto it. The name on the jersey was “Gretzky.” The Plante biography would have to wait.

Even with the resulting media hype over this teenage rookie –– who was my same age, weight and height –– the SuperFans’ enthusiasm for the upcoming 1978–79 Racers was muted. Like many other hardcore fans, we suspected that the team roster had been gutted yet again. There was little, if any, practical thought that the franchise would complete the upcoming season.

But hope springs eternal in Indianapolis –– and hope was needed as the season’s first player payroll date grew near –– so SuperFan Dave Pickering thought that just maybe Gretzky could save the day. “I think I was naïve, but I did. All that summer (1978) everything was ‘Gretzky, Gretzky!’ and merger talk was all the rage –– we thought since the (basketball) Pacers were able to get into the NBA (in 1976) that there was still a chance that the Racers could get into the NHL. Our family went to the Hockey Hall Of Fame in Toronto that summer and looked with awe at the Stanley Cup –– ‘What if one day the Racers could play for it?’–– we actually said that out loud.

“And I asked a guy working there, ‘So what do you think about Gretzky signing with Indianapolis?’ And his response was, ‘He can’t skate!’ ” Pickering laughs at the assessment, which today, of course, couldn’t be more ludicrous.

For most of the WHA’s existence, merger talks with the NHL had been on again and off again, almost certain and never to happen, just around the bend and far in the distance –– impossible to predict. It was the worst kept secret in hockey, though, that Indianapolis had never been seriously considered for the merger, and the franchise did not make formal applications for entry into the NHL as most of the other WHA clubs had. Since Indianapolis would not be included in the merger between the two major hockey leagues, the SuperFans asked ourselves: what was the purpose of the Racers even playing this last season?

Theory number one: “Skalbania simply wanted to keep his moribund franchise alive long enough to recoup his costs through the buy-out money he would receive in the event of a WHA–NHL merger…,” Scott Adam Surgent writes in his book “The Complete Historical and Statistical Reference to the WHA.”

The June 1978 signing of Gretzky added to the confusion, though. Why would Skalbania sell his interest in the Edmonton Oilers –– a WHA team likely to be included in the merger ––  and then buy Indianapolis, a financially disastrous team that would not be included? Why sign 17-year-old star prospect Gretzky to a whopping contract (reported at between $1.125 million and $1.75 million) for a supposedly cash-strapped team? 

Theory number two: The NHL prohibited the signing of players under 20 years of age, so Skalbania could beat the gold rush by signing the future “Great One” years before any NHL team could. It was also believed that the NHL would eliminate WHA teams from consideration if they signed underage players in anticipation of the merger. So a “patsy team” was needed to park Gretzky until the merger was worked out –– then Gretzky could be moved to one of the WHA merger teams and enter the NHL the following year. And perhaps Skalbania still owned part of the Oilers.

That patsy team seemed to be the Indianapolis Racers. Gretzky became the ultimate pawn to help force the NHL to absorb WHA teams, but this intrigue also ensured that Indianapolis would be sacrificed.

Even after he signed with Skalbania, Indianapolis wasn’t on Gretzky’s hockey radar. “Then Indianapolis came up and I had no idea where Indianapolis was,” Gretzky said in “The Rebel League,” a book by Ed Willes. “It was awkward in Indianapolis. I was a 17-year-old kid trying to find my way, and there were players on the team a lot better than me. But they were marketing the team around me.”

The marketing was not effective. Skalbania quipped, in the same book, “I think our season ticket sales jumped 2,000 to 2,300 when we signed Wayne. A 17-year-old-kid, no matter how good he was, wasn’t going to sell tickets in that market.” In defense once again of the Indianapolis hockey fan, there was not one city in the world that would have lined up for major-league season tickets based on the exploits of an unproven teenage amateur rookie.

Skalbania himself never saw Gretzky skate for the junior Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, and had no idea of his existence until others in the WHA told him the signing could become a money-maker. And, according to newspaper accounts,  there was still wide-spread disagreement, both throughout the WHA and NHL front offices, whether Gretzky was an actual pro prospect at all, let alone a sure-thing superstar. Some GMs believed that Gretzky would never play a game in the NHL.

In an October 27, 1978 Hockey News cover story, Gretzky played nice and contended he was accepted by his Racers teammates and did not feel over pressured by the “Great Gretzky” ad campaign that tied the franchise’s survival solely to him and his fan appeal. But he acknowledged to the Toronto Globe & Mail –– after he left the Racers –– “I knew that if Indy started out drawing not too well, then they’d have to make a move.”

Teenage Racers fan Bruce Boggess remembered in 2004 that Gretzky was hardly overwhelmed by his fan club responsibilities. “One time after school I went over to Glendale Mall, and walked by one of the inner entrances to Ayres department store and saw Gretzky sitting there. Ayres had sponsored a fan club for him, and he was there to sign autographs. The strange thing was that other than a girl who was there from the store to keep him company, there wasn’t anyone within a hundred feet of him. As I walked past the entrance he was looking around and laughing and looked right at me shaking his head, practically shrugging his shoulders as if to say, ‘Anyone?’ ”

The headline for the October Hockey News cover story, complete with a color photo of Gretzky in his Racers blues, was a more accurate barometer of the larger business pressure surrounding him: “Gretzky Big Hope For WHA’s Future.” Quite simply, if someone in the WHA had not signed Gretzky, then a merger with the NHL might never have happened.

But Indianapolis was destined to be left at the pro hockey altar. “I don’t think we thought Indianapolis would be included (in a league merger) because there were a lot of rumors going when we started the year, even though we had Wayne, that we might be a team that was in trouble,” said goaltender Ed Mio.

(c) 2007 Timothy Gassen
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