The Saskatchewan Blues: How close was it to a reality?  

The St. Louis Blues are Stanley Cup champions as of Wednesday evening, but one vote changed the history of the franchise.

It could have been the Saskatchewan Blues lifting the cup.

In 1982 and 1983, Saskatoon was buzzing. The city thought it was to welcome the province’s first NHL franchise.

Bill Hunter purchased the Blues in hopes of a possible relocation to his hometown of Saskatoon, but as the history books now tell us, that never happened.

How close was it to being reality?

Kevin Waugh was the sports reporter at CTV Saskatoon at the time, and he was sent to the Stanley Cup final in 1983 to cover the vote. He says it was a reality right until the ratification vote.

“The only stumbling block was the owners of the other NHL teams. In St. Louis, there was no other group standing up and saying, ‘We will save the Blues, and remain the franchise in St. Louis,’ ” he said. “There was a buyer, Bill Hunter and his group. They made the agreement to sell the club to Saskatoon, and it was the NHL owners themselves that stepped up and said, ‘No.’ ”

Hunter was part of the group that also started the World Hockey Association. It was the NHL’s only competition, and many NHL owners hated the idea of losing their stars to the startup.

In the end, it ended up harming Hunter, as an argument between himself and a few owners — including Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard — cost the vote, Waugh said.

“There was a feud between (Ballard) and (Hunter) from the old WHA/NHL days. When the WHA started, they took many superstars from the NHL,” Waugh said.

“Really, their presentation wasn’t heard at all by the owners of the NHL. They had already made up their mind that this would never happen.”

During that time, however, the city’s population rivalled those of Quebec City and Hartford, which had franchises in the NHL. The owners insisted that Saskatoon was still a market that they just couldn’t get behind.

“Saskatoon was small. The NHL owners, the majority of them, did not want little Saskatoon in the NHL,” Waugh said. “They felt they were too small, (they felt) that if you were going to have revenue-sharing, Saskatoon would be at the top of the list. (They) didn’t think Saskatchewan could really sustain an NHL team.”

The night before the vote was also the night that the New York Islanders swept the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup in 1983. Waugh was in the dressing room during the celebrations, and he remembers asking John Ziegler, the commissioner of the NHL at the time, if the team was actually going to move.

“Ziegler kind of tipped his hand. He said, ‘Under no circumstances will the NHL take a small franchise (into) Saskatoon, and play in the NHL. I don’t think the owners tomorrow are going to approve it,’ ” Waugh said.

And Ziegler was right. The final vote ended up 13-5 in favour of the Blues staying in St. Louis.

Bill Hunter’s son, Bart, remembers the move that almost changed the course of NHL history in Saskatchewan and St. Louis.

He was a part of St. Louis’ farm team at the time, and he said nowadays, the team may not be viable because of sponsorship and the big dollars that surround the NHL.

If his dad was still alive, and the Blues did actually move to Saskatoon, he believes that this wouldn’t have been the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

“He would have said, ‘We would have had a winning team for years. We’d be winning our third or fourth Cup by now,’ ” Bart Hunter said.

Regardless, the Blues ended up staying in St. Louis.

With three Saskatchewan-born players on the 2019 Blues roster, though, it’s a small consolation prize for the province.

It will always be something to wonder. The Saskatchewan Blues will live on as the province-wide dream that never came to be.