1967 NHL expansion
It was the largest expansion undertaken at one time by an established major sports league and the first change in the composition of the NHL since 1942, ending the era of the Original Six.
[1] The six new teams were the Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and St. Louis Blues.
In the aftermath of the shakeout caused by the Depression and World War II, in which the National Hockey League contracted from ten teams to the so-called "Original Six" clubs (Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Black Hawks), the NHL became immensely profitable.
Professional sports teams of the era were primarily gate-driven enterprises; however, attendances consistently rose after the end of the war.
[2][3] Groups representing Philadelphia (which had secured rights to the dormant Montreal Maroons franchise), Los Angeles and the AHL Cleveland Barons were each in turn given conflicting requirements that seemed to contemporary observers designed to disqualify the bids, and it was widely understood that the existing NHL owners wanted no encroachments upon their profits.
[2] In 1963, Rangers governor William M. Jennings introduced to his peers the idea of expanding the league to the American West Coast by adding two new teams for the 1964–65 season.
He also hoped that teams on the west coast would make the league truly national, and improve the chances of returning to television in the United States as the NHL had lost its deal with CBS.
The expansion process formally began in March 1965, when NHL President Clarence Campbell announced that the league proposed to expand its operations through the formation of a second six-team division.
In February 1966, the NHL Board of Governors considered applications from 14 different ownership groups, including five from Los Angeles, two from Pittsburgh, and one each from Minneapolis – Saint Paul, Philadelphia, San Francisco – Oakland, Baltimore, Buffalo, and Vancouver.
[5] Six franchises were ultimately added: the California Seals (San Francisco – Oakland), Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and St. Louis Blues.
[2] Internal considerations took a hand in that since as Montreal and Toronto were not interested in sharing CBC television revenues with another Canadian club, and Chicago owner Arthur Wirtz's support was reputedly contingent on the creation of a St. Louis team, although that city had not submitted a formal bid, to purchase the decrepit St. Louis Arena, which the Black Hawks ownership then also owned.
[5] Even some proponents of expansion were worried at the idea of immediately doubling the NHL's size and wanted to ease teams in gradually, as Major League Baseball was doing.
The expansion, Bobby Orr's record $1 million contract in 1971,[8] and the formation of the World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1972 forever changed the landscape of the North American professional game.
However, the NHL's other goal of immediately securing a lucrative TV contract in the U.S. similar to MLB and the NFL never fully materialized until decades later.
After the 1969–70 season, the league moved Chicago to the West Division and altered the playoff format to force Eastern and Western teams to face each other prior to the final.
The Flyers repeated as champions in 1975 by defeating the Buffalo Sabres in the first modern Stanley Cup Finals to not feature an Original Six club.
[10] The Pittsburgh Penguins were largely unsuccessful in the beginning, failing to win their division until the 1990–91 season, but accumulated draft picks and built a strong team that won two consecutive Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992.
The Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area-based franchise was the least successful of the 1967 expansion teams: noncompetitive both on the ice and at the box office, the club eventually moved to Cleveland to become the Barons in 1976.
