23 Venerable Star Dave Keon Wore the Red, White and Blue Crest of The
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venerable star Dave Keon wore the red, white and blue crest of and led the team with 38 goals, but the Racers were a shell of the Racers for the latter half of the season. Suddenly, the their former selves, never in the hunt for the playoffs and offense packed some punch, and result was a late-season 12-4- finishing last with a 24-51-5 record. Ingram lasted just half the 3 finish, including a ten-game unbeaten streak. Surprisingly, year, with players Bill Goldsworthy and Rosaire Paiement later the Racers finished atop the Eastern Division with a 35-39-6 assuming the coaching roles. By now, the team was moribund mark. The team allowed just 247 goals against, best in the and should have ceased existence. league. Goaltender Andy Brown played part of the season Then Wayne Gretzky happened. The seventeen-year old while coping with injuries. He was backed by Swede Leif child was a budding superstar, already showing tremendous Holmquist. But it was a rookie, Michel Dion, who assumed the skill and clearly ready for better competition than what he was starter’s role with a 2.74 goals-against average and 14 wins. facing in the Juniors. Both the NHL and WHA wanted him, but Backing him was another rookie, Jim Park, who sported a 2.41 the NHL would not sign a seventeen-year old player under any average in 11 games. In the playoffs, the Racers took New circumstances. Neither would the WHA, had their very England to a full seven games, with Park recording two survival not been at stake. Merger discussions in 1978 had led shutouts, before bowing out. Still, their 1975-76 showing was nowhere, and the WHA was readying itself for a seventh—and a remarkable improvement from the previous year. likely final—season. The league was down to seven teams, and Indianapolis stumbled again at the start of the 1976-77 it desperately needed leverage. Wayne Gretzky, still in high season, winning just 4 of 15 games, before righting itself with school, was that leverage. a 12-1-0 run during November and December. Thereafter, the Signing Gretzky took some creative thinking. The WHA team won and lost about equally often, the offense improved teams with money, and most likely to enter the NHL, shied but the defense not as sharp as the previous year. Center Hugh from signing him for fear of ruining the negotiations with the Harris was having a career-year, with 56 points in 46 games, NHL. Meanwhile, Nelson Skalbania saw an opportunity. He before he was hobbled by a knee-on-knee check by Quebec’s signed Gretzky in June 1978 to a personal-services contract, Paul Baxter in January. Blair MacDonald led the team with 34 meaning Gretzky was his property—not the Racers’, not the goals. Rene Leclerc and Reg Thomas were second, with 25 WHA’s. Gretzky was ostensibly the savior that the Racers each, while defenseman Darryl Maggs led in points with 71. needed to survive, but no one could have saved the Racers by The Racers squared off against rival Cincinnati in the 1977 this time. It is possible the Racers could have stayed solvent for playoffs, the first game a three-overtime, five-hour thriller in the entire 1978-79 season, then be paid to fold in the event of a which Cincinnati blew three one-goal leads, the Racers tying merger. But this assumed a merger could be agreed upon, late in the third period, and Gene Peacosh finally winning the which was not a guarantee as of the summer of 1978. Barring battle with a goal 8:40 into the third overtime. The win lifted a merger, Gretzky himself could be sold for cash at Skalbania’s the Racers, who swept Cincinnati in four straight. convenience. In either instance, Skalbania had the proverbial Unfortunately, the magic ran out fast, as Quebec dismissed the ace up his sleeve with the young Gretzky. Racers in the following round in five games. With the Racers, Gretzky played eight games, scoring Meanwhile, the WHA and NHL were discussing merger three goals and assisting on three others. Praise was universal seriously for the first time. The ambitious plan would have six for the young man, who showed his skill from the outset. His WHA teams join the NHL in 1977-78 … but not Indianapolis. stay in Indianapolis lasted just three weeks. On November 2, No one would ever accuse Racers fans of not supporting their 1978, he was sold (along with Peter Driscoll and Ed Mio) to team, but there simply weren’t enough of them, and the team the Edmonton Oilers for $850,000. Gretzky was now on a solid was always in precarious financial shape. The NHL was not team backed by an owner with money, and the league now had interested in Indianapolis, and should the merger happen, the Gretzky safely within its hold. Racers would fold. The Racers lingered for six more weeks, winning just 5 of For a time in the summer of 1977, it seemed likely that a 25 games and on pace to give up over 400 goals. Pat Stapleton merger would be approved. So much so that players and coached the team, well aware that his tenure would be short. executives alike left the Racers for teams more likely to enter Blaine Stoughton and Don Larway led the team with 18 points the NHL. Loyalties went out the window, as many Racers, apiece, and Ed Mio registered the team’s lone shutout. In late including Coach Demers, joined their nemeses in Cincinnati, November, another seventeen-year old kid with potential, who were deemed likely to be part of the merger. But merger Mark Messier, skated in five games on a try-out basis, failed. The vote in August 1977 was close, but not sufficient registering no points. Skalbania finally pulled the plug on the for approval. Suddenly, the WHA needed to re-assemble for its Racers in mid-December, 1978. After four-and-a-half years, sixth season, and the Racers, already a financially weak team the Indianapolis Racers ceased existence. and now having lost its core of players, cobbled itself together Gretzky and Messier would team together in Edmonton, to play another season. winning four Stanley Cups with the Oilers during the 1980s. The team had been the wards of a bank, who were eager Messier won a fifth in Edmonton, and a sixth with the Rangers, to unload it if someone would assume the debts. Nelson before retiring in 2004, the last former WHA player to remain Skalbania, still a minority-owner of the Edmonton Oilers, took active. Gretzky later played in Los Angeles, St. Louis and with control of the Racers and set about resurrecting the team. Hired the Rangers before retiring in 1999, the NHL’s all-time leading to coach was Ron Ingram, formerly of the San Diego Mariners, scorer. Few remember them as kids playing in a men’s league which had folded in 1977. Ingram brought over about half a for a few weeks in Indianapolis, yet the Racers’ legacy survives dozen of his Mariner players including Kevin Devine and through them, and for the cast of hard workers that formed the Kevin Morrison. Claude St. Sauveur also returned to the WHA core of the team during its short run of glory. 23 .