1972 WHA Founding

Lore & Background

In the early 1970s, professional hockey in Canada was a closed shop. The NHL had its established clubs, and cities like Winnipeg—home to a passionate, hockey-hungry crowd—were locked out. The WHA's 1972 founding changed that. A group of investors and promoters assembled a league of twelve teams spread across Canada and the United States, and Winnipeg was given a franchise almost as an afterthought that became a city's obsession. The Jets were not a polished, pre-existing brand; they were a blank jersey, a borrowed arena, and a prayer that fans would show up. The first season, 1972-73, was scrappy. The roster was a patchwork of journeyman players, minor-league veterans, and a handful of young prospects who would grow into legends. The Winnipeg Arena, a modest venue by modern standards, packed with fans who had never seen a professional team call their city home. The atmosphere was electric, almost defiant—this was a league the NHL had dismissed, and the Jets were its Canadian flagship in the West. Over the next few seasons, the Jets built an identity. Blue and gold became sacred. The team developed a physical, fast, and unapologetically Canadian style that drew crowds and cultivated a fanbase that would outlast the WHA itself. By the time the 1979 merger brought the Jets into the NHL, the franchise was no longer a startup; it was a club with history, rivalries, and a city that had staked its sporting soul on it. The 1972 founding is, for Jets fans, the day it all began.

In Their Own Story

The Winnipeg Arena smelled of cold concrete and fresh paint. It was October, 1972, and the boards had been installed only weeks ago. A line of players in blue-and-gold jerseys—some with tape still on their sticks, some still figuring out the rink's odd bounce—lined up along the centre ice. The crowd was a sea of wool hats and breath-steam, three thousand strong, every seat taken, people standing in the aisles. A local broadcaster's voice crackled over the PA, announcing the starting lineup like he was reading a war dispatch. The puck dropped. It skidded, a kid in the third row screamed as if the puck had hit him, and the arena shook. No one in that building had ever seen a professional hockey game. They would never go back to not having one.

Reader's Guide

Era: 1972 – the WHA's inaugural season and the Jets' birth. What defined it: The Jets entered the WHA as one of twelve founding franchises, playing in the Winnipeg Arena. The league was built as a direct challenge to the NHL, offering players higher salaries and a more open structure. The 1972-73 roster was assembled quickly—journeymen, minor-league call-ups, and a few names that would later echo through Jets lore. The style was physical, fast, and unpretentious. Why it matters: Every Jets season, every rivalry, every championship that followed is measured against this first drop of the puck. The 1972 founding is the club's origin myth. It established the blue-and-gold identity, the Winnipeg Arena as a cathedral, and the idea that this city deserved a team that played like it meant something. When the WHA folded into the NHL in 1979, the Jets carried that founding spirit with them. For fans, 1972 is not a footnote; it is the first page, and the ink is still wet.

Did You Know?

• The Winnipeg Jets were one of twelve original WHA franchises when the league began play in the 1972-73 season.
• The WHA operated for seven seasons before merging with the NHL in 1979, at which point four WHA teams—including the Jets—joined the NHL.
• The Jets played their early WHA seasons at the Winnipeg Arena, a venue that became a defining part of the franchise's identity.
• The WHA was founded as a direct competitor to the NHL, offering players higher salaries and a more open contract structure.

A Cardboard Baron's Hockey Dream

On December 27, 1971, Winnipeg was awarded a founding franchise in the newly formed World Hockey Association, and the man behind the vision was Ben Hatskin, a local businessman who had built his fortune in the cardboard shipping container industry. He named the club the Jets after his earlier Western Canada Hockey League team, and the organization's first roster move came in 1972 with the signing of Norm Beaudin, who would earn the nickname "the Original Jet." Ab McDonald was tapped as the first captain. The franchise's defining early moment arrived on June 27, 1972, when Bobby Hull — already the most prolific active scorer in the NHL — leapt to the upstart league on a ten-year deal to both play and coach, carrying a record one-million-dollar signing bonus within a package valued at no less than two and a half million dollars. The move was partially bankrolled by the other WHA clubs, and it instantly lent the league a legitimacy it had desperately needed. The Jets' inaugural WHA contest took place on October 12, 1972, at Madison Square Garden against the New York Raiders, and McDonald put the first Jets-era goal on the board.

Pioneering the European Pipeline

Winnipeg became the first North American hockey organization to look seriously beyond its borders for talent, and the results reshaped how the sport was built. Swedish forwards Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson joined Bobby Hull to form what became known as "the Hot Line," widely regarded as the WHA's most dangerous and productive forward trio. Defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg, also from Sweden, went on to captain the Jets and collect the league's top defenceman honors. Other European contributors included Willy Lindstrom, Kent Nilsson, and Veli-Pekka Ketola, all woven into a roster that also featured Canadian and American players like Peter Sullivan, Norm Beaudin, and goaltender Joe Daley. The cultural adjustment was not seamless; several of the European players had to acclimate to a noticeably more physical and aggressive style of play in North America, and some openly pushed back against the intensity. Hull himself accumulated more than 303 goals across his seven seasons with the club from 1972 to 1979, yet when he passed away in 2023 he was found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and his brain was donated for research into the condition.

The WHA's Undisputed Kings

Across the seven seasons of the World Hockey Association, no club matched Winnipeg's postseason consistency. The Jets reached the playoffs in every year except 1974–75, hoisting the Avco World Trophy in 1976, 1978, and 1979, and falling short in the finals in 1973 and 1977. The 1976 title, claimed over the Houston Aeros with blazing passing and speed, made Winnipeg the first Canadian franchise to capture the WHA championship and delivered the city's first major sports title since the Blue Bombers won the Grey Cup in 1962. The Winnipeg Sun noted that the 1975–76 squad was the first North American team to win a championship built around a European core. Another landmark arrived on January 5, 1978, when the Jets outscored the Soviet Union national team 5–3. In the league's final season, Kent Nilsson tallied 107 points, Morris Lukowich scored 65 goals, and Peter Sullivan posted 46 goals with 86 points. The last goal in WHA history was scored by Dave Semenko against Gary Smith in a 7–3 win over Edmonton. All three championship rosters were inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame.

From Glory to Exile and Return

After joining the NHL in 1979 via the merger, the Jets endured a brutal adjustment, going a combined 29–106–25 across the 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons. They made the Stanley Cup playoffs every year from 1981–82 through 1987–88, yet posted a winning record only in 1984–85 and 1986–87, their only first-round advances in Winnipeg. By the early 1990s, financial pressures from free-agency rule changes, a weakening Canadian dollar, and an aging Winnipeg Arena lacking luxury suites made the franchise untenable. Winnipeg became the NHL's smallest market after the Quebec Nordiques relocated to Denver in 1995–96. When a plan to replace the arena failed in 1996, owner Barry Shenkarow sold the club to Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke for $65 million. A proposed move to Minneapolis–Saint Paul collapsed, and the team relocated to Phoenix with Jerry Colangelo. The Jets' final game came on April 28, 1996, a 4–1 playoff loss to Detroit. The franchise's records carried over as the Phoenix and later Arizona Coyotes, which suspended operations in April 2024. The NHL returned to Winnipeg in 2011–12, with the relocated Atlanta Thrashers granted the Jets name, debuting at the MTS Centre on October 9, 2011.