What’s left of the Whalers? | The Montreal Journal

HARTFORD, Conn. – As soon as you enter the XL Center, formerly called the Civic Center, you notice multiple photos with the Whalers logo standing out in the atrium. We see celebrations with the Avco Cup in the 1970s, then Gordie Howe, Ron Francis and Kevin Dineen, among many others.

The table is set for this evening where we mark the 50th^e anniversary of professional hockey in Hartford. Even the Brass Bonanza, Whalers’ signature song when celebrating a goal, is heard during the pre-game celebrations.

In the stands, the wildlife is strangely diverse for this special evening as the Hartford Wolf Pack, in the American Hockey League, hosts the Lehigh Valley Monsters. On January 11, 1975, the first professional hockey game, featuring the New England Whalers of the World Association, was played in Hartford in this same amphitheater. If the supporters are gathered to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary, a certain animosity remains palpable between those nostalgic for the Whalers and those who now wholeheartedly encourage the Wolf Pack.

“I’m here for one reason: to celebrate 50 years of hockey in Hartford,” grumbles Terry Battle, letting it be known that he is certainly not a Wolf Pack fan.

“It’s not the same league,” added his friend Joe Wysocki. We were in the National Hockey League. They are the American League.

Battle, 63, and Wysocki, 60, are both part of the Hartford Whalers Booster Club, which has about 50 members at most.

“We have two missions: keep the Whalers name and logo alive and bring the NHL back to Hartford,” summarizes club president Mark Anderson, who is 50 years old.

An old amphitheater

In the Wolf Pack camp, which is also banking on such a “booster club”, we know very well that part of the generation that knew the Whalers has difficulty developing a feeling of belonging to American League hockey. There were therefore 10,074 spectators, many dressed in green and white, for the part paying tribute to the 50 years of hockey in Hartford on Saturday, while the next day, half of them, or 5,061 people, attended the defeat of 3 at 1 for the Wolf Pack against the Springfield Thunderbirds.

“We have to face reality: the Whalers are not coming back, we have to be happy with what we have here,” argues Scott Griffin, president of the Hartford Wolf Pack Booster Club, also a former editor of the newspaper’s sports pages. Republican-American. From an economic point of view, I can be a season ticket holder, close to the rink, for the price it would cost me for about four NHL games. And in the American League, it’s more intimate, we’re closer to the players.”

“It’s unthinkable right now to think about bringing back the Whalers,” Anderson will finally agree, half-heartedly. This amphitheater [ouvert en 1975] is so old.”

Malarchuk, Lemieux and… banners

For one evening last Saturday, several Whalers nostalgic fans were at least transported somewhere between 1979 and 1997, when the NHL was present in Connecticut.

During our meeting, Battle also remembered very well the day when the Whalers had planted 7 goals on goalie Clint Malarchuk to finally win 11 to 6 against the Quebec Nordiques, during the regular season, in January 1986. The man was strangely less talkative when talking about Claude Lemieux’s overtime goal in the playoffs of that same year, when the Canadian beat the Whalers in Game 7 of the final. of the Adams division, at the Montreal Forum.

“I still think that Ron Francis should have taken a penalty to avoid the Canadian’s first goal [inscrit en désavantage numérique par Mike McPhee] in this match,” he simply said.

“I was a season ticket holder for 16 years with the Whalers,” he continued, not so subtly changing the subject. I now cheer for the Hurricanes, but I still only buy merchandise with the Whalers logo.”

This fits with part of the mission of the Hartford Whalers Booster Club, which is to keep the logo alive. As for the possible return of the Whalers, the mission seems rather impossible. All that remains is to look at the photos in the atrium, the numbers removed from the ceiling or the old banner of the Adams division champions from 1986-1987.

50 years of professional hockey in Hartford

New England Whalers – 1975 to 1979

World Hockey Association (WHA)

Hartford Whalers – 1979 to 1997

National Hockey League (NHL)

Hartford Wolf Pack – 1997 to 2025*

American Hockey League (AHL)

*The club was briefly named the Connecticut Whale from 2010 to 2013.