The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association |
Buy The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association here, one of 750 Hockey History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 75793 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Hockey History > Item 167
 |
The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association
|
by Ed Willes
Sales Rank: 404758
|
$10.99
At Amazon
on 6-22-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 288 pages
Published by: McClelland & Stewart October 4, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 077108949X
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0771089497
Book Dimensions:
8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
Weighs: 15.2 ounces
Product Review
“A must-read for hockey fans.”
—Canadian Press
“A book fuelled by the fumes of the WHA’s audacity, reckless hope, violence, and economic hilarity. . . . A highly entertaining tale.”
—Globe and Mail
Product Description
The wildest seven years in the history of hockey
The Rebel League celebrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of the fabled WHA. It is filled with hilarious anecdotes, behind the scenes dealing, and simply great hockey. It tells the story of Bobby Hull’s amazing million-dollar signing, which helped launch the league, and how he lost his toupee in an on-ice scrap.It explains how a team of naked Birmingham Bulls ended up in an arena concourse spoiling for a brawl. How the Oilers had to smuggle fugitive forward Frankie “Seldom” Beaton out of their dressing room in an equipment bag. And how Mark Howe sometimes forgot not to yell “Dad!” when he called for his teammate father, Gordie, to pass. There’s the making of Slap Shot, that classic of modern cinema, and the making of the virtuoso line of Hull, Anders Hedberg, and Ulf Nilsson.
It began as the moneymaking scheme of two California lawyers. They didn’t know much about hockey, but they sure knew how to shake things up. The upstart WHA introduced to the world 27 new hockey franchises, a trail of bounced cheques, fractious lawsuits, and folded teams. It introduced the crackpots, goons, and crazies that are so well remembered as the league’s bizarre legacy.
But the hit-and-miss league was much more than a travelling circus of the weird and wonderful. It was the vanguard that drove hockey into the modern age. It ended the NHL’s monopoly, freed players from the reserve clause, ushered in the 18-year-old draft, moved the game into the Sun Belt, and put European players on the ice in numbers previously unimagined.
The rebel league of the WHA gave shining stars their big-league debut and others their swan song, and provided high-octane fuel for some spectacular flameouts. By the end of its seven years, there were just six teams left standing, four of which – the Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers, and Hartford Whalers – would wind up in the expanded NHL.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association (Hardcover)
Because you couldn't make this stuff up. Yes, Virginia, there really WERE Hanson Brothers...and among the other characters chronicled in "The Rebel League : The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association", they are some of the more well-adjusted people you'll read about. By the time I got interested in hockey the WHA had already folded its tents and began its inevitable fade into...well, somewhere between legend and the haze of attempting to recall details from an alcoholic blackout. Was it really just a league of goons, kooks, and has-been graybeard NHL stars intent on the continued drawing of a paycheck? Regardless of whether you're interested in the recent history of pro hockey in North America (which as of now is in serious jeopardy of mutually assured destruction thanks to its current labor "crisis"), you absolutely MUST read this book if you've ever seen the movie "Slap Shot". Like me, the first thing you'll probably do is look at the pictures (we're hockey fans, after all)...and there they are in all their safety-glassed glory, "The Hanson Brothers" (actually the Carlson brothers) and a very angry-looking young man with a HUGE afro called Bill Goldthorpe ("Ogie" Oglethorpe, as you live and breathe)! Something like this could have only happened in that decade of bad taste, the 1970's. The "golden age" of rival leagues ran from 1960 through 1980 (you can include the USFL from the mid-'80's if you must) with the AFL (and later the WFL) in football, the ABA in basketball, and the WHA in hockey. You can make the argument that in terms of financial success and impact on the game's established LEAGUE the AFL was the most successful of all of them (with the ABA a close second), but if you know hockey at all, there can be no doubt that the WHA had the most effect on its SPORT. Without the WHA there would be no interest in expansion to the Deep South (whether even now that is a good idea remains up for debate, but still...), teen-aged players would not be drafted and given the significant ice time that they routinely see today, the free-skating, player salaries would never have reached the competitive (before reaching the unrealistic) level that we see today, European-influenced finesse oriented game ruled the NHL (until those accursed New Jersey Devils did as much to destroy the modern game as the current lockout by winning the Stanley Cup in 1995...after, ironically enough, a prior lockout). The European market would probably remain an untapped market for major league talent even today in North America had it not been for the Winnipeg Jets gambling that Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson had what it took to survive the goonery that made up ALL of North American hockey (well...except the Montreal Canadiens) at the time. The entire decade from 1984-1994 in the NHL might as well never have existed had the WHA not been there to show the way the game should be played. NHL.com, with the lack of games to cover during the lockout, have taken to staging an all-time fantasy league tournament. As of this writing, one of the final four teams playing are the 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers. These Oilers, including hockey's all-time star Wayne Gretzky and several of that team's core players, were playing in the WHA just five years prior. The renegade league held together by scotch tape and powered by scotch whiskey had the last laugh after all. This book brings it all back to life in a terrifically enjoyable read. Sports used to be fun first, a business second. Re-grow those sideburns, find the ugliest toupee you can, put on the polyester double-knits and enjoy this flashback of a book.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association
Available from Amazon
Price: $10.99
Updated on 6-22-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association and other related Hockey History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Hockey History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
