A Visual History of the WHA

By JVDW

In Featured

Nov 21st, 2019

1 Comment

On October 11, 1972, the Alberta Oilers faced off against Ottawa Nationals in the first game ever in the World Hockey Association, the only professional hockey league to ever challenge the NHL’s prominence in the modern era.

But on May 20, 1979, the Winnipeg Jets defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the last Avco Cup Finals. After seven tumultuous and problematic seasons that saw dozens of different teams comes and go, a league that featured some of the greatest players in the game (including Gretzky and Howe) shut down for good.

And we at HbD are fascinated by the complex and ups-and-downs the league endured during those seven seasons. And since it’s the 50th anniversary of its demise, we’ve created an infographic commemorating the WHA’s history in the same style as our NHL infographic, showcasing the history of every single franchise, packing in as much information we could fit, so that you have a complete visual representation of the entire history of the League.

• More: HbyD InDepth: World Hockey Association
• More: A Visual History of the NHL (Updated for 2019!)

It took hours upon hours of research and design, and all it will cost you is your email.

Here’s the entire timeline in a lo-resolution form…

It includes franchise logo history, franchise playoff successes and droughts, franchise jersey colours, league standings for every year, league re-alignments, franchise movements, playoff formats, Avco Cup championships by team, by country and by state/province…and more. There was a lot going on for only 7 seasons of existence.

The cleverest among you can figure out who played who in each round of the playoffs every single year. Everything you need to know about the wacky history of the WHA is in this infographic. And it’s free.

Well, almost free. The only thing it will cost you is your email. Yes, you’ll be on our mailing list, and we’ll send some other emails about Hockey By Design content and specials, but we won’t spam you and we won’t share your email with anyone (we’re not jerks). A small price for this awesomeness.

And, we have to give massive stick taps to Chris Creamer’s Sportslogos.net, whose has been a constant invaluable resource for this site, and especially for this project (you’ll see a credit to them on the infographic as well).

Here’s some more screenshots of sections of the infographic (click to enlarge)…