Hartford Whalers: How the Brass Bonanza fell silent
Recently, I got a question from a new Canes fan asking about the link to Hartford. What caused the team to move? What really went wrong in New England’s rising star to see the only sports team based in the area moved down south to a non-traditional hockey market in Carolina? Was the NHL that hellbent on expansion southward? Why do the Hartford Whalers not exist anymore?
I’m going to do my best to explain everything that happened in Hartford and why the team left in the way they did. Specifically, why they moved down south, what happened to hockey in Hartford after the organization migrated. I’m going to try to explain why the Hartford Whalers are now just a memory for the NHL and hockey fans.
There’s no easy way to start this, so, I’m going to start with the organization’s birth. Notice how I didn’t say it’s NHL birth because the Hartford Whalers had success before they were an NHL team. Back in the ancient year 1972, there was a rival league to the NHL. It was a year when the World Hockey Association operated alternatively to the historic NHL.
It’s important to remember that the Whalers did not start out in Hartford, originally being called the New England Whalers and playing at Boston Garden, the Whalers started off in the same place the Bruins did. While the Hartford Whalers would win the first-ever Avco cup in 1972, it obviously didn’t end well. Otherwise, the Hurricanes wouldn’t exist, so what went wrong?
In the WHA, the Whalers would never find the same success as they found in the World Hockey Association’s first year. In the seven years that the WHA existed, the Whalers would only win it once, and that was in the inaugural year. After that, it was a lot of trying but never reaching the same heights they did in 1972.
In 1978, the league became aware that the future of the WHA was unlikely, and in 1979, the teams played out the final season in the history of the WHA. From the carnage and burning wreckage of the WHA, 4 teams were allowed to join the NHL but were severely stripped and damaged in terms of their rosters.
The WHA teams had to face, not only the players who had NHL rights in the NHL while they were over in the WHA going back to the team with their rights, but they also had a dispersal draft. The teams in the NHL got to take one player off each roster, protect them and shuffle pieces around before the WHA teams would get a pick of the league’s spare parts.
The teams that had been competitive in the WHA struggled, while the Edmonton Oilers who were still building for the future, found success. It was evident that the other three teams would find it difficult to emulate that success in the NHL. But that didn’t stop them from trying.
Time in the NHL
In 1979-80, the Whalers joined the National Hockey League and had their first season in the league. After the team was gutted in the dispersal draft and allowed to re-build from the spare parts of the other teams, the Whalers were not what they were in the WHA and quickly found that out.
The Whalers struggled during their first few seasons in the big league. They were basement dwellers while they tried to rebuild, and it became a theme to see the team become the whipping boy for big teams like the Boston Bruins, the New York Rangers, and the Montreal Canadiens. They did make the playoffs in their first year in the NHL, but 16 of 21 teams did only the truly awful missed.
Speaking of only the truly awful missing, the Whalers would miss the playoffs for the next 5 years and would finish last in their division for the last 4. The Whalers were struggling, and the city of Hartford was missing the success the team had seen when they were in the WHA winning the championship and seeing their team win titles… until 1985-86.
In 1985-86, the team emerged from the basement of the Prince of Wales division and exploded into life. Led by Sylvian Turgeon, Ron Francis, and Ray Ferraro, the young core the Whalers had tanked for was starting to show its teeth and his ability to fight with the big guns in the division. They even beat the Quebec Nordiques for their 1st ever series win… but that was the height of the success of the Whalers in Hartford.
The team would continue to make the playoffs, but they were always 1st round fodder being thrown out when they played the likes of Boston and Montreal. It became a reoccurring theme and a staple of the NHL. Goaltenders flail around, the puck bounces, and the Whalers lose in round 1. And that was just the start of the issues with the Whalers. On March 4th, 1991, the team made a move to change the franchise forever.
Star forward and future general manager and hall of fame player Ron Francis would be traded alongside Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Zarley Zalapski, Jeff Parker, and John Cullen. Pittsburgh would go on to win back-to-back Stanley Cups, and Hartford fell back to the cellar.
With the team treading water in its old division, the team was sold in 1994 to accompany a new division alignment. Hartford was now in the North East division, and the new owner wasn’t afraid to pull the plug on the team in its current location. He doesn’t like losing money, and Canes fans know that way too well about Peter Karmanos.
The Hartford Whalers swan song
When Peter Karmanos took the team over in 1994, it was in pieces. Remember, this team still played at the Harford Civic Center in the Hartford Civic mall. Karmanos didn’t want to lose money in a market that had struggled to support the team beforehand and tried everything to bring fans to see the Hartford Whalers, but it was to no avail.
In 1996, Karmanos said if the Hartford Whalers did not sell enough season tickets, the team would be relocated. Ticket sales went through the roof, from the average 14 thousand to well over 17 thousand tickets were sold per game during the 1996-97 season, but by then, Karmanos had agreed on a lease on a building in Greensboro, North Carolina.
It was the final season for the Hartford Whalers, and it would be the last time that fans of hockey would see the iconic whale tail, or hear the classic brass bonanza song play during an NHL game. It was the NHL saying goodbye to an iconic logo, and a city that deeply treasured their team. It would be a truly heartfelt goodbye as the Whalers skated down the tunnel and away from their adoring fans for the last time.
The team would move to Carolina and become the Hurricanes we adore today, but the Whalers name was thrown to the wind and almost forgotten about. At least it was until new majority owner Tom Dundon purchased the team and brought back the Whalers jerseys to honor the team’s history and its past form in the constitution state.
Today, we know Whalers night as the night the Canes take to the ice in the beautiful green sweaters the Whalers used to wear and the goal song changes from Raise Up to Brass Bonanza. It’s a night to honor the Whalers and the fans that the team left behind in its wake (Ha, Hurricane pun). It’s also used for marketing, which cannot be denied, but it’s certainly a touching tribute to the team’s previous form.
Today, the city of Hartford is home to the AHL’s Wolf Pack, they are the AHL affiliate of the New York Rangers. However, there is an expectation that the league will never return to the city of Hartford due to its struggles to support the team in the first place. The Hartford Whalers are now just another piece of history, the most iconic US-based NHL team to no longer exist.
Next. . dark