William Dickenson Hunter, (May 5, 1920 – December 16, 2002) was a Canadian sports promoter and ice hockey player, coach, manager, and investor.
Also known as "Wild Bill", Hunter co-founded the Western Hockey League (WHL), helped to launch the World Hockey Association (WHA), and worked to bring professional hockey to Edmonton and to his hometown of Saskatoon.
Born in Saskatoon, Hunter founded his first competitive sports team when he was 18, the Saskatoon Dukes Football Club.
Hunter attended Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, where he managed the college's sports teams, including organizing a 78-game tour for the baseball team.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Hunter left school to join the Royal Air Force's International Squadron and served as a pilot based in England.
After his time in the war, Hunter returned to Saskatoon, where he worked briefly for CFQC Radio before opening Hunter's Sporting Goods in North Battleford the following year.
1945
Between 1945 and 1949 Hunter coached and managed hockey teams in North Battleford, Regina, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, and Saskatoon.
It was during these years that Hunter was nicknamed "Wild Bill" following a dispute with a referee.
Hunter did not like the nickname at first, but he ultimately embraced it.
1950
In 1950, Hunter founded the first curling bonspiel to be held on artificial ice, the Quaker Car Curling Bonspiel.
1952
He also managed and coached the Saskatoon Quakers hockey club until 1952.
1953
From 1953 to 1956, he was the owner, manager, and coach of the Medicine Hat Tigers.
1956
In September 1956, Hunter claimed that, as owner, he could rightfully sell players.
Alberta Amateur Hockey Association president Art Potter disagreed that any junior team owned its players or had the right to sell them to another team, and compared the idea to slavery.
He warned that proper transfers must be completed to change teams, and that players could be suspended if an agreement was not honoured to play for a team.
1960
Hunter was owner, manager, and coach of the junior Edmonton Oil Kings in the mid-1960s.
In a seven year period from 1960–1966, the Oil Kings played for the Memorial Cup every year, but won just twice, in 1963 and 1966—the latter with Hunter at the helm—and finishing as runner up five teams.
Hunter felt that the competitive structure of the game in Western Canada was putting the region at a disadvantage to stronger leagues in Ontario and Quebec; each western province still had its own junior league while Hunter believed the West needed a single top tier junior league to compete effectively with the larger associations out east.
He found three partners who felt the same way: Scotty Munro of the Estevan Bruins, Del Wilson of the Regina Pats, and Jim Piggott of the Saskatoon Blades.
The NHL was expanding rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the league rebuffed Hunter's proposal for an Edmonton team.
Hunter offered to purchase and relocate the Pittsburgh Penguins, but this proposal was rejected.
1966
The four men co-founded the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League, to begin play in 1966, and recruited the Calgary Buffaloes, Moose Jaw Canucks, and Weyburn Red Wings to join their teams in the upstart league.
1967
The CMJHL, which was renamed the Western Canada Junior Hockey League in 1967 and the Western Canada Hockey League in 1968, was suspended form CAHA-sanctioned events, including, ironically, the Memorial Cup.
1971
By its second season, the league added four more teams, including three based in Manitoba, and by 1971 the league spanned all four western provinces, from Manitoba to British Columbia.
The league had a rocky early relationship with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, the national governing body for amateur hockey, which considered the fledgling group to be an "outlaw league."
However, the new league held together and when CAHA reorganized Canadian junior hockey in 1971, it recognized the WCHL as one of the three top tier junior leagues in the country.
In 1971, Hunter was introduced to Gary Davidson and Dennis Murphy, two American investors who wanted to establish a professional league that could rival the NHL and provide smaller markets the opportunity to join the major leagues.
Hunter became the key figure in securing further investment and franchise commitments—he later recalled that it quickly became apparent that Davidson and Murphy "didn’t know a damn thing about hockey"—and before the end of 1971 the World Hockey Association was taking shape, set to begin play in 1972.
Hunter was the league's founding president.
On November 1, 1971, the Alberta Oilers became one of the 12 charter WHA franchises, founded by Hunter and a partner, Edmonton surgeon and entrepreneur Chuck Allard.
Hunter named the team after the junior Oil Kings.
The team was to be based in Edmonton, fulfilling Hunter's promise to bring the city a professional franchise, and they were joined in the WHA by another small market western Canadian team, the Winnipeg Jets.
Hunter knew that the WHA needed to make a splash to gain credibility, and he came up with a scheme to sign NHL superstar Bobby Hull, then in a contract dispute with the Chicago Black Hawks, to hockey's first million-dollar contract.
Ben Hatskin, who Hunter had recruited to help get the WHA off the ground and who founded the Jets, agreed to sign Hull to the contract; however, it took contributions from every team to meet the $1 million commitment, making Hull's contract the first instance in professional sports where every member of a league pitched in to sign a player to one team.
Another major scheme was the staging of a second Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, but this time having the Canadian team made up of WHA players.
1972
By 1972, the Memorial Cup's modern round-robin format was established, featuring a playoff between each top tier league's champion.
Since then, teams from the WHL have won the Memorial Cup 19 times, compared to 17 times for teams from the Ontario Hockey League and 14 times for teams from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
1974
This second Summit Series took place in 1974, further increasing the credibility of the new league, although Canada lost the series.
1978
In 1978 the WCHL shortened its name to the Western Hockey League with the admission of American-based teams.
Following the establishment of the western junior league, Hunter set his sights on professional hockey, desiring to bring a National Hockey League (NHL) team to Edmonton.
