5/30/2023 0 Comments The Rebel League by Ed Willes![]() Willes has also published Gretzky to Lemieux: The Story of the 1987 Canada Cup (M&S 2007). Willes wrote on hockey for the Winnipeg Sun for eight years, freelanced out of Montreal in 1997-1998, contributed to the New York Times and thereafter started writing a sports column for The Province in Vancouver. Four of these joined the NHL as the Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers and Hartford Whalers. Of the 27 new hockey franchises, only six remained when the league was dissolved. Harkening back to his days as Winnipeg reporter after the blond bomber Bobby Hull had shocked the NHL by signing with the Winnipeg Jets of the rival World Hockey Association, North Vancouver's Ed Willes has published a history of the seven-year WHA entitled The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the Western Hockey Association (M&S, 2004). ![]() This all happened in the WHA, the league that led to the making of the Paul Newman movie Slap Shot. Bobby Hull lost his toupee on the ice, Mark Howe forgot he wasn't supposed to yell "Dad!" when he passed to Gordie Howe, and a bunch of Birmingham Bulls somehow found themselves buck naked in an arena concourse spoiling for a brawl. ![]()
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