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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Verbal History of The WHA, October 10, 2004
This review is from: The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association (Hardcover)
This is a great book about the WHA, its players, coaches and franchises and its impact on modern hockey as told through interviews with many of those involved in the league. The book is written in the same style as "Loose Balls", Terry Pluto's excellent history of the ABA, which is a collection of anecdotes and interviews coupled with factual information, statistics and an ample dose of humour. It is fitting that this style was used since Dennis Murphy (who started the ABA) also started the WHA.
Many of the WHA's best players are interviewed including Gordie Howe and his sons Mark and Marty, Bobby Hull, Wayne Gretzky and HNIC commentator Harry Neale, late of the Minnesota Fighting Saints. Anecdotes from these interviews abound: Jacques Plante and his cross country skiing fetish, Rocket Richard the reluctant coach, Bobby Hull making sure his check didn't bounce, the story of the Carlson brothers and Dave Hanson in "Slapshot" and the story of Gordie Howe signing with the Aeros with his sons are some of the memorable ones.
Individual chapters are devoted to the league's beginnings, and to the more important and influential teams. Houston, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Ottawa/Toronto/Birmingham and Minnesota pretty much all get individual chapters, while other teams like Cincinnati, New England, Phoenix, Alberta/Edmonton and Indianapolis get less attention, the latter two mostly in the final chapters when Gretzky is discussed. Some franchises like LA/Michigan/Baltimore, Chicago, NY/NJ/San Diego and Denver/Ottawa are virtually non-existent in the book, which is too bad since their exclusion makes the league look more stable than it really was. Granted these teams weren't around long enough for much history to accumulate and its debatable whether anyone would want to admit they were affiliated with them!
A lot of the information in the early chapters on how low player's salaries were and the corrupt relationship between the NHL and the CAHA is timely and interesting given the current strike in the NHL, not to mention the unethical practice of teams selecting agents for their players. The book also paints some people in a less than favourable (and rightly deserved) light, Alan Eaglson, Harold Ballard and Richard Sorkin to name a few.
Overall the book was entertaining, it could have used a lot more information on some of the other lesser known franchises and perhaps more of the "front office view" (ie business aspects) of the league versus the "on the ice" view that sometimes reads like an episode of Don Cherry's old show "Grapevine". Still, it is a good read and well worth the time.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wild and wooly tales, August 23, 2005
This review is from: The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association (Hardcover)
This is one of the better books on hockey although it does have some glaring omissions and weird photo choices.
There is virtually nothing on the 1974 Team Canada (really Team WHA) vs. USSR Summit Series plus no mention of the fact that games against the Soviet All-Stars and Czechoslovakia actually counted in the 1977/78 standings which I would like to have known how they decided on that. Plus it's not just these international connections, there's no mention of the fact the WHA reintroduced overtime (10 minutes) to regular season hockey or that they even tried out the shootout in 1972 exhibition games.
Somehow he completely left out talking about Jim Harrison who had a modern major hockey record 10-point game. Another guy to get nary a mention was goalie Don "Smokey" McLeod who was known for his curved stick, a record 43 assists in his WHA career and stopping two penalty shots in a single period not once...but in two different games!
I understand you can't touch on everyone but I often felt too much text was given to the brawlers (who are highly entertaining and funny) but not enough to some of the more remarkable offensive feats.
Also, who approved the pictures? The front cover is of Bobby Hull (as it should be) but it's of him being shoved by what looks like Brad Selwood. Come on! You gotta have Hull flying in on goal shooting the puck as your cover ...and put the Wayner on the back cover.
The appendix is totally lame just listing teams year by year. They had enough room so why not put the standings and maybe playoff results in that space?
Plus inside we get a pic of Derek Sanderson in his Blazers' jersey but it sure looks like he's wearing an AHL Boston Braves (huh?) jersey. Also, the pic of Ulf Nilsson, Anders Hedberg and Bobby Hull is not even in their Jets' jerseys. It looks like Nilsson is wearing a New York Rangers #18 Andre Dore jersey. What is up with that? The caption also says they are "celebrating a goal" but if they are, why are all three wearing different jerseys while Hull is not wearing any hockey gloves, has no stick and is clutching another jersey in his hands?
Enough of the negative as the positive does outweigh the negative here. His call for the "Hockey" (not NHL!) Hall of Fame to recognize Nilsson, Hedberg and Mark Howe is a point well taken. I also dug the whole birth of the WHA and how it all came together. Plus he is able to articulate how the NHL Oilers of the '80s based their freewheeling style on the WHA Jets of the Hull-Hedberg-Nilsson era.
He also gave the best description of what actually happened in the Rick Jodzio attack on Marc Tardif incident which was probably the WHA's low point.
The stories about Gordie Howe and his two sons were endlessly fascinating and worthy of a book on their own, too.
Willes' style is breezy and you can read this in one sitting but given the goldmine of material, I wanted about 200 more pages.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What was on the ice was more fun than what was off the ice, November 4, 2006
This review is from: The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association (Hardcover)
One often hears "sports is a business," typically in the context of a player getting traded or cut.
"The Rebel League" talks about the business aspects of the World Hockey Association. While the league paid players fantastically (and simultaneously helped hundreds of players who never played in the WHA get paid more by the NHL), the league's revenue side was nowhere near as robust. Further, the league struggled with the practical aspects of putting on hockey games. For instance, the New York Raiders were hamstrung at Madison Square Garden by "a series of union contracts that guaranteed certain staffing quotas in the areas of concessions and maintenance. The rent might have been $1,700 on Sundays, but when you added in the costs of all those support workers, the actual price for staging a game was close to $20,000." I had never thought about an issue like that.
An unsung hero of the WHA that "The Rebel League" brings out is the late John Bassett, the owner of the Birmingham Bulls. It was Bassett who was most prominent in signing players under the NHL's age limit. "The Rebel League" argues this was a forcing function that finally got the NHL's dinosaurs to agree to the league merger. Bassett ends up being a martyr as neither he nor the Bulls made it into the NHL.
"The Rebel League" is a quick read. Willes is a lucid writer. His journalistic background comes out, both in the positive sense of the book being well-written and in the negative sense of the book lacking much depth.
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