It’s hard
to believe, but it’s been 25 years since “The Trade”. On August 9, 1988, Wayne
Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings by the Edmonton Oilers. Yes, I know
that there were other players involved. But Wayne was the big name in that
deal. He had the greatest impact on
those two franchises and on the NHL. But
beyond that, he had an impact on hockey in the Southern US. His arrival in L.A. thrust hockey into the
spotlight of America’s sports culture.
Suddenly, hockey was cool in the Sun Belt. Suddenly, Kings games were a
hot ticket. Suddenly, Kings games were sold out…all of them. Suddenly, Hollywood stars started going to
Kings games to be seen by the paparazzi, rather than to hide from them. The
quality of celebrity attendees at Kings games rose from Lynda Carter (TV’s Wonder Woman
from the 70s) and Adam West (TV’s Batman from the 60s) to Kurt Russell and Goldie
Hawn and John Candy (Believe me, they were big in movies in the 80s).
But
beyond that, the newfound popularity of the Kings began to spread to a lot of
the Southern states. Living in Arizona (since we didn’t have an NHL team of our
own), I was one of many people who followed the Kings (although, in my case, I
started following them a couple of years earlier). But the result was that
hockey became far more popular in states below the Mason-Dixon Line than it had
ever been before. Even though many of these cities already had minor-league
teams, hockey was still a fringe sport in most of these communities. There were
always the die-hard fans, many of them transplants from colder climes, but
suddenly there were more “casual” fans being exposed to hockey on TV and checking
out the minor league version in their own cities. There was an upsurge in
popularity among many minor league teams and that resulted in expansion of some
of the Southern leagues. Based on this
expansion, the NHL made moves to expand into the previously untouched (with the
exception of the Kings and the Atlanta Flames) Southern United States.
In 1990,
the NHL put a second team in California with the expansion San Jose Sharks, who
were followed a year later by the Tampa Bay Lightning. In 1993, the Minnesota
North Stars moved to Dallas and the league’s Southern expansion continued with
the addition of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and the Florida Panthers. The Winnipeg
Jets moved south and became the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996 and the Hartford
Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997. The Nashville Predators joined
the league in 1998 and the league returned to Atlanta with the Thrashers in
1999.
