WHA, Revisited

A week or so ago I posted my Houston Aeros Media Guide collection. I was inspired to poke around eBay looking for Aeros/WHA items and this guide from the league's first season popped up. I made an offer and landed it. Makes for a nice companion piece to my Aeros run.

In a comment on that post, Joe Shlabotnik mentioned the lack of the city name on the Aeros first guide. Given that they were originally bound tor Dayton it's quite possible that things were kind of hurriedly thrown together. Obviously the Aeros 'cribbed' the league's logo for the cover. No other team (as far as I could find) did the same. They all used original artwork or photos.

This guide is pretty simple. Most of it is taken up with team pages consisting of a roster and a directory with a short write-up. Here is the contents page...

And we get a big dose of the WHA's 'godfather', Gary Davidson. He knew about as your pet turtle does about hockey.

A page of flunkies. The guy on the bottom left looks like an extra from the set of 'Moscow On The Hudson'.

You can click to enlarge but the part that interested me was this:

Well over a year into the process the Aeros move from Dayton to Houston. That's about six months prior to training camp.


The rules page is the most interesting thing here. The WHA, like so many startups since, tried to be innovative. Overtime, shootouts, less restrictive passing and icing rules were part of it. They also made a big issue of being less punitive on guys who jumped into fights (Third Man Rule) and the sticks had a much bigger curve allowance. The page even mentions Bobby Hull and how his curved stick had been dialed back in the NHL.

What surprised me, though, was the last section which mentions 'colored' pucks. They acknowledge the failed experiment of red ones but trumpet the use of blue pucks.

All this was news to me. I kind of followed the league pretty closely but I have no memory of any of that. There are a few listed on eBay but the color doesn't really come across as blue. EDIT: As I re-read this it occurs to me that I have an Aeros puck, supposedly official and from the '75-'76 season, on a shelf behind me. It's black as coal.


Every team got the double page roster/team info page. The non-players are all listed as well as broadcasting info. Below that is a blurb about the city itself.

Here is my crew, the '72-'73 Aeros. It looks like a skeleton crew was running the club. They were probably still hiring when this book was put together.

The Squad. At the time I think I had some familiarity with maybe two players from their NHL careers, Dunc McCallum and Paul Popiel. For this former pond hockey goalie Don 'Smokie' McLeod quickly became a favorite.

There's your five-man front office. Four if you don't count the owner.

Yes, they may have been in a hurry but..."Golf Coast"?... "baseball Houston Aeros"? Yup, I realize the irony of me, Mr. Typo, picking on a few mistakes, but this was a pro team.

The Raiders had an old friend from the Rangers, Camille Henry as head coach. He'd been retired a year and had spent it coaching in the Central League at Kansas City. But the reason I show this is that there are two other familiar names listed. Herb Elk, the Raiders' PR Director and Assistant GM later came to Houston to work with the Astros. I got to know him through working at the Houston Post. He was a huge, jolly man. He died before he was 50.

And the Raiders' radio voice? John Sterling. "Theeeeeeee Raiders Win!"

Then there is a filler page with the team logos. And a complete league schedule.

The WHA refs were listed. I hadn't realized how many of them had come over from the NHL. Bill Friday was a very well known name back then. According to Wikipedia, he is the only referee to work both the Avco Cup finals in the World Hockey Association and the Stanley Cup finals in the National Hockey League. There are about six other names I know.

Then comes another throwaway page, league-wide start times. I guess those would be useful if you actually were a member of the media.

The back cover had an ad for the now-defunct Host Rent-A-Car.

 

The WHA produced league-wide guides in later seasons but I didn't find all of them with a quick eBay search. It doesn't matter since I won't be chasing any others down. Having the first year guide is kind of fun, though.

Speaking of the WHA... I am just about to crack the spine on this book...

I've wanted to read it for a while and I'm finally finding the time. Hopefully, it'll have some laughs and some memories. I'll be particularly interested in reading about the Howe Family signings and the sad end of the Aeros franchise. I may do a book report! 👨

Dammit, I miss hockey!

In a normal year, we'd be near the end of the second round of the NHL playoffs right about now.  Things would really be getting good. I'm fairly certain my Rangers would have missed out on the post-season (give us a year though!) but that has never stopped me from enjoying the Stanley Cup trek. I watch hockey, especially playoff hockey, no matter who is involved.

I spent a few days late last year sorting and cataloging my Aeros cards and assorted ephemera. Being a fan of media guides and programs I dug through boxes to see what I had kept. I found that I had five of the six guides. I found the missing guide on eBay and it's on its way now. now in hand!

I also found that my Gordie Howe poster, which he had signed at a promotional event, was missing. Who knows where it went after all these years. So I sought out and grabbed this signed photo. Gordie was the Bob Feller of hockey. He signed relentlessly over the years. He was Mr. Hockey and is still the greatest player I've ever seen. The photo didn't scan very well but you'll have to trust me that it's a beauty.

1972 was the Aeros first season. A lot of my buddies at the University of Houston came from hockey hotbeds, and we hopped on the bandwagon early. One of our group worked in the fledgling ticket office, so we got plenty of passes.

These programs are kind of fragile and I don't want to flatten them on the scanner so all I can show is front covers and a few backs. I also snapped a few pics which I'll sprinkle in. The Aeros' story is an interesting one. They were supposed to be the Dayton Aeros but lack of a suitable arena sent their ownership on a hunt for a good home and luckily they landed here.

The guide is, as you might expect, not very thick, just a dozen pages or so. Front office & coaching staff listings and brief player bios. A roster in the centerfold. Not even a schedule.

The back of the cover has the logos of the original WHA teams.

One of the things that attracted us (or maybe just me) to the WHA was the fact that some old NHL players had gotten second leases on their careers. Old school favorites like Harry Howell and old school enemies like Teddy Green and Norm Ferguson were part of it. Not to mention Bobby Hull.

For their guide the Aeros had a bit more to work with in 73-74 since there was a season under everyone's belts. I'm a bit surprised that there is no mention of the previous (inaugural) season since it had been pretty successful The Aeros had finished second in their division and won the opening playoff round before losing in the semi-finals.

The cover did the obvious, trumpeting the arrival of the Howe family.

That's my friend, Mike, on the left in the middle row on this page.

I used my letter opener to hold the pages open for pics. Interestingly Gordie didn't get a full career stat rundown like everyone else. Maybe they were afraid of running out of ink, or space, or both.

It was certainly huge news here in Houston when he signed to come along with his two boys. There were a few lawsuits as I recall as well. I think the NHL was trying to block the younger Howes from playing. They were underage junior hockey players or some such thing.

But the Howes sparked the Aeros to the first of their back-to-back WHA titles. The 74-75 guide showed off the trophy, the AVCO World Cup. We are somewhere in that crowd. The clinching game is one I'll never forget as the Aeros kept getting power plays and kept converting. A crazy night.

Here's my AVCO Cup story as I posted years ago....

[...]WHA story... It occurred the day after the Aeros won their first AVCO Cup. A good friend who worked at a department store that had a tie-in with the team was headed into work when he spotted the AVCO Cup trophy sitting all by itself on the loading dock. Just sitting there apparently after being delivered by the team for a promo. No one was paying any attention to it as it sat just feet from the morning downtown workers hustling by. Hard to imagine the Stanley Cup in that spot.

This time Gordie got a write-up, bio/vitals, and all the stats.  This was the first really substantial guide they issued, probably due to their recent success. Players get full-page bios, there are all manner of stats, some game action pictures, and playoff summaries. Pinocchio, you're a real boy now!

Another title brought another artistic rendering of the Cup being skated. The Aeros had dominated the playoffs, winning twelve games with only a single loss that came in the first round (to Cleveland and Gerry Cheevers).

With the good times came a really professional media guide. Not only were there write-ups for everyone in the franchise but the stats were extensive. They had pages for opposing teams, on-ice officials rosters, tons of team records and stats for the Aeros, and more.

The Fighting Saints were the Aeros big rivals, at least as far as we were concerned. Of course, the WHA being the goofy, fly-by-night outfit they were most of the time, had a second Minnesota Fighting Saints franchise in 1976. That team had previously been the Cleveland Crusaders.

Here is another story I related in a previous post:

At the Coliseum the visiting team would have to walk a gauntlet of fans between periods and at games end, trudging on their skates up a rubber mat along a path formed by a couple pieces of rope to the locker-room. It passed right through the concession area. Fans would give the Fighting Saints (we had another 'F' word that we used instead of 'Fighting') a real going over. I'm surprised that none of us ever got clobbered with a stick or kicked with a skate.

No 'Cup skate' to show in 1976 since the Aeros had lost in the finals to Bobby Hull and the Winnipeg Jets. They used the same artist to put Gordie on the cover. By now the team had joined the Rockets in the shiny, new arena known as The Summit. The whole vibe of the games had changed. The Sam Houston Coliseum had been a dump, but it was OUR dump, and we missed it.

Gordie was now wearing two hats, President and Chief Thrower Of Elbows In The Corner.

The Aeros were still a good team but not as good as they had been and early exits in the playoffs kind of reflected what was happening off the ice. The merger talks had everyone on a roller coaster. We fully expected to get into the NHL...at first. But the team had changed hand a few times and I suspect the folks in charge of the Aeros as the WHA started coming apart were more focused on the Rockets.

It became a day-by-day thing with nobody knowing what was going to happen. I was at the Houston Post at the time and had become friends with a couple of the writers (one who had covered the team, been hired away by them, and then returned to the paper). They all thought the franchise was going to land on its feet. But when the music stopped the Aeros were the one without a chair. I think there was talk of buying an existing team and moving them here but that was a pipe dream.

This last media guide had a 'cheaper' feel to it. The pages had changed from the glossy paper to plain stock. There was less to crow about so it wasn't as thick. Plus Gordie and his boys had moved on to the Whalers.

We did get a cool pic of tough guy Terry Ruskowski and an oddly disheveled  Bobby Hull.

And then they were gone. The WHA played a final season without the Aeros as part of it. In the 90s the IHL/AHL Aeros were formed and played here for about a decade. They were a Minnesota Wild farm club at the end. I had kids by then, and they fell in love with the 'new' Aeros. I enjoyed them as well, heck, hockey is fun no matter what level you're watching, but nothing could ever compare with those days at the creaky, dank Coliseum.

Harry Howell, RIP

Harry Howell, long time Ranger standout defenceman and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee died earlier this month at the age of 86.

I grew up among Rangers fans. All my friends, no matter their baseball or football loyalties, loved the Blueshirts. And we all had our favorite players. I idolized Eddie Giacomin, my two closest pals were Rod Gilbert devotees. But I never remember anyone claiming Harry Howell as his favorite. Howell was not flashy. Most blue line guys back then usually stayed back, rarely getting involved in the rush so they didn't score much. (Bobby Orr changed all that.) They were defencemen and they played mostly, well, defense. Howell was my father's favorite Ranger. If you had known my father that fact would not surprise you.

I had one brush with Harry Howell and it happened when he ventured into the WHA after 17 seasons with the Rangers. He was playing for the NY/NJ Golden Blades (or maybe it was the Knights) and they came through Houston to play the Aeros. As usual, my snowbird college buddies and I would make our way down to the concourse of the old Houston Coliseum before the game and during intermissions to watch the players tromp back and forth from the ice to the locker rooms. They had to come right through the crowd 'walking' on a rubber mat and protected by a rope held by security guards. It was not unlike what happens when pro golfers exit a green to make their way to the next tee box. Anyway, on this night I wore my Rangers tee and when Howell passed by I said something witty like "Hi, Harry!".  I remember that he replied, "Hey, Rangers" and moved on by.

All that is a too long introduction to the item at the top. It's a 6"x6" ceramic tile from a group known as H.M. Cowan/Screenart Hockey Tiles. They are a 1962/63 item that has a very murky history. Supposedly, and I only found one source of info (and no checklist), they were designed with the intention of being souvenirs to be sold in NHL arenas. But they were unlicensed and the project never got very far. Most (again, supposedly) were destroyed but obviously, some have survived and are neat little period pieces. The tiles depicted players and coaches from the six franchises in existence at that time. The number of different tiles is estimated at 104 but that's just someone's guess. I've been poking around eBay and auction sites and have seen about six different Rangers on these things, including Gump Worsley (a tile I'd give my right arm for).

I was completely unaware of these until the February TriStar show. I spotted a couple of Ranger's tiles (Howell and Dave Balon) in a case on a table near the front. They were listed at $150 each. The dealer(s) who manned those tables had nothing but rare and fascinating oddball items. They had one display case filled with loads of unusual Roberto Clemente items. Another case has Topps rarities and test issues from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Crazy rare stuff like the '68 Plaks, the '67 Punchouts and on and on. They also had zero interest in chatting with a schlub like me dressed in a Baltimore Colts tee-shirt and Ping cap. I stood around for quite a while as they dealt with neighboring dealers, a guy with a briefcase of graded cards and their cell phones. Meanwhile, I had $150 in cash in my hand waiting to get their attention.

Finally, I gave up and figured I'd come back later when they were not quite so busy. But the tiles had me hooked. I went and sat down and pulled out my phone to find out exactly what I had been looking for. After a few minutes I had a decent amount of info and on a whim I checked eBay. Well, what do you know? I found a guy selling the Howell tiles for about one-third of what the Snooty Table© dealers were asking. I bought it without a second's hesitation. Even the $15C shipping didn't faze me...heck that's just $10 American! 😏


For the curious, here is the back of the tile.

So, there it is. A great Rangers display piece now on my shelves. Oh, and I spent the money I saved with other, more appreciative dealers. Not all of it there at TriStar but a week later with my dealer friend at his hotel show. His ever-rotating cheap crap boxes featured some hockey and I was happy to dig these cards up:

I've already made this post far too long so I won't comment on each card very much. But I have to say that I hated Ken Hodge with the searing heat of an exploding sun when he played for the Bruins. To see him in Rangers gear takes at least a month off my life.

These Rangers' unis were almost enough to make me an Islanders fan.


No, not really, but I  consider them the worst mistake in team history. Given the Rangers legacy, that's saying a lot.

And finally, Eddie!! I told Darryl (a fellow Rangers fan from NJ) that this card should have been in his glass case instead of his quarter bin.

Eaton's Gordie Howe Postcard

This is one of my favorite pickups in recent months. It's a postcard-sized promotional piece of hockey legend Gordie Howe from the mid-60s. It was issued on behalf of Eaton Department Stores which I've come to find out was a big retail chain in Canada back then.

Gordie, who was a spokesman for Truline Sports Equipment, is pictured in his All-Star uniform. Just a great photo. I consider myself fortunate to have seen Mr. Hockey play many times. I witnessed a handful of his games with the Red Wings in New York against my Rangers. When he came to Houston to play for four seasons with the Aeros and his sons my friends and I (and frequently my father) were there as often as possible. For the first two years of Gordie's time here the Aeros played at the dearly departed  Sam Houston Coliseum. I'm not sure I've ever enjoyed sports more than I did then.

Doing my quick research for Eaton's I found that a book was written about the chain.

Note the photo of Gordie on the cover in his Eaton's red blazer. He must have been to Eaton's what Ted Williams was to Sears down here. I also found many magazine ads that he was showcased in and some other interesting items.

Truline hockey gloves endorsed by the GOAT.

There is at least one other Gordie/Eaton's postcard. I may have to go find one for myself.

 And Truline made baseball gloves that carried Gordie's seal of approval!