I remember when there was talk on the radio about the new World Hockey Association, and they announced that Chicago was getting a team. My dad followed the conventional wisdom, which was that with the NHL expanding to double its size from 6 to 12 for the 1967-68 season, then adding 2 more teams for the 1970-71 season, there wasn't going to be any good players for the new league. He figured, as everyone did, that it would really be nothing more than a glorified semi-pro league.

That all changed one summer day in 1972. Every TV and radio station in Chicago, it seemed, was reporting that Bobby Hull was going to the new league. He showed up on TV, suddenly with a full head of hair, smiling and holding one of those oversized checks for a million dollars. The Blackhawks and the NHL tried slapping an injunction on Hull, the WHA, and the Winnipeg Jets, but in the end, Hull was in the new league.

Here in Chicago, the team name was announced to be the Cougars. They would begin playing their games in the International Ampitheatre, down on the South Side.

Now, if you're too young to have ever been there (which I'm guessing is everyone but me & Dave Morris), it was a real shithole. It was too small for hockey, and when the Cougars played there, the rink was undersized and there was wire fencing instead of glass above the boards. Also, even though the Union Stockyards, which were right next door, had just closed, the place still reeked of livestock and livestock by-products. Plus, it only held 9000. This place made Chicago Stadium look like the damn Taj Mahal.

The owners were two brothers, Walter and Jordon Kaiser. The Kaisers tried to put together a team that could draw. Their star attraction was Reggie Fleming. Reg was a beloved old Blackhawk, good with the puck and with the fists. Oh, the puck. The WHA actually tried using a blue puck the first year. They thought it would be easier to see on TV. Not that it mattered to us, since the Cougars were on Channel 44, and you had to have this dopey hoop antenna on the back of your TV in order to get the channel at all, and when you did, every game was the Winter Classic, because it always looked like they were playing in a blizzard.

And the Cougars were bad. I mean, they were shitty. The worst team in a cut-rate league. But the WHA had draws, and we got to go to more games than we ever could before. The Hawks were still a big draw, and went to the Stanley Cup Finals their first season without Hull. But you could see Hull with the Winnipeg Jets, and Gordie Howe came back to hockey with the Houston Aeros. There were other stars, like Derek Sanderson and Gary Cheevers, from the Bruins.

The next year, the Cougars poached more Blackhawks. One of my favorites, Eric Nesterenko, went to the Cougars. Pat Stapleton went over as well, seerving as player-coach. They managed to climb into fourth place, making the Avco Cup Playoffs. Yes, their trophy was the Avco Cup, named after a financial services company.

Anyway, they make the playoffs. The Cougars won the first round, and were ready for the semi-finals. Unfortunately, the Ampitheatre wasn't expecting the Cougars to still be playing, and had booked a production of Peter Pan (starring female gymnast Cathy Rigby as ol' Pete) for the dates of the next round.

Looking for a building, the Kaisers went to Arthur Wirtz. Wirtz would have been happy to take their money, but the Hawks had the building booked, as they were in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Desparate for any building with seats and a sheet of ice, they held their home playoff games at the rink at the Randhurst Mall in Mount prospect, in front of a couple hundred. They played the Finals there as well, losing to Gordie, Mark, and Marty Howe's  Aeros.

By this point, the Kaisers had pretty much had it with the Cougars and the WHA. They had been trying to get a deal to build a new arena near O'Hare since the team's inception. They had the land, but couldn't get a deal for the arena. So they sold the land to the city of Rosemont, and eventually Allstate Arena (nee Rosemont Horizon) was built.

The Kaisers sold the team to three players - Stapleton, Ralph Backstrom, and Dave Dryden, brother of Montreal great Ken Dryden. But by this time, the Cougars still hadn't been embraced by the Chicago hockey fans, and the WHA was still viewed as an oddball league. They couldn't draw flies (which was remarkable, considering the smell), and the Cougars folded after the 1974-75 season.

Here's some great Cougars footage. Dig the music, the lively interviews, and Jacques Demers looking ready to join a Ron Jeremy lookalike contest...






Tap your stick on the ice for WHAHockeyTV.com for this great clip.