Games Off, Stags Wait Word no byline Associated Press January 13, 1975 The World Hockey Association announced Saturday that Michigan Stags' home games for Sunday and Tuesday have been postponed. "The league will make an announcement relating to the status of the Michigan Stags' players and their contracts early next week," Dennis Murphy, WHA president, said in a statement released by his executive assistant, John Kanel. Kanel would make no further comment. The Stags were to have met San Diego Mariners on Sunday. The Tuesday game would have been against Indianapolis Racers. The league announced Friday it was picking up the salaries for the players on the financially troubled team. But neither the WHA nor Metro Sports Associates, owners of the club, would comment about the team's future. The Stags, in last place in the Western Division and plagued by poor attendance in Detroit, played Friday night at Chicago and lost 5-2. The Stags' owners said Friday that they have turned over all responsibilities of the franchise to the WHA after receiving a telegram from the league indicating it was taking over. But Kanel, who said the league will "do everything possible to keep the team here," noted the WHA was merely helping the Stags meet the team payroll. Asked whether the WHA was assuming the bulk of the Stags' debts, Kanel said: "I can't confirm or deny that." At a news conference, business manager Dick Cote of the Stags and lawyer Fred Keywell provided copies of telegram correspondence between the club and the WHA. But as was the case with Kanel, they had no comment on most of the questions put to them. The telegram received Monday was signed by Murphy and Claude Young, WHA general counsel. It said: "This is to advise you that as your period in which to cure defaults after notice has terminated you are now without right to exercise any rights of ownership with respect to the franchise. The WHA through its board of trustees will now exercise its prerogative under the terms and conditions of the WHA bylaws." Subsequently, Metro-Sports Associates sent Murphy a telegram Thursday, saying the WHA "became substituted as the contracting party in the place of Metro-Sports" and, therefore, is responsible for "all attendant liabilities, past, present and future." Murphy, however, told a newsman by phone Friday that the Stags' owners are "making it seem as if we are responsible for all their bills and we're not." "We're not taking over their past debts." The Internal Revenue Service has filed a lien against the Stags for withholding taxes. Cobo Arena, meanwhile, has been after the team to pay back rent.

It Seems No One Wants Troubled Stags no byline Associated Press January 14, 1975 Time has run out on the Michigan Stags. A highly-placed source in the World Hockey Association has told The Associated Press, "I see nothing that can prevent it from going under." The league already has met two player payrolls of the financially beleaguered team which, one source says, has lost $2 million. WHA President Dennis Murphy was in Baltimore during the weekend and was reported to have discussed a possible transfer of the team, which has a sparse following since the Los Angeles Sharks franchise was moved to Detroit prior to the start of the season. The Internal Revenue Service has filed a lien against the franchise, a figure listed at $177,870 but said by a source to be closer to $300,000. "And the IRS doesn't make a deal in cases like that," the source added, bringing to mind incidents in the World Football League where uniforms and office equipment were attached and auctioned. The player contracts have become the property and responsibility of the WHA, but not the debts incurred by Michigan's owners, Peter J. Shagena and Charles H. Nolton, including rent to the city of Detroit for Cobo Arena, the Stags' home base. "Unless something happens there very quickly, I suspect it's all over," the source said. If the team folds, players would be absorbed by other clubs in a draft which would give the lower-ranking clubs first priority. Two Stags games already have been cancelled, including Sunday's home game against San Diego Mariners, another transplanted team, and Tuesday night's game against the expansion Indianapolis Racers, who were bailed out financially earlier this year. There had been some hope for construction of an arena in Pontiac, Mich., but the deal fell through. There also was talk of moving the team to Calgary, but there were no takers. As a result, league action was necessary. "It's dragging on too long," the WHA source said. "How many games can you postpone?" Games were postponed earlier in the year while ownership of the troubled Chicago Cougars franchise was being transferred to a group led by player-coach Pat Stapleton, center Ralph Backstrom and goaltender Dave Dryden. "But that was just to get things ironed out," the source said. "The Michigan postponements are because they don't have any money."

Stags: Who Can Afford Them? by Reyn Davis Winnipeg Free Press January 21, 1975 Michigan Stags are being paid so handsomely there is a deep reluctance among World Hockey Association teams to absorb their contracts. "Their salaries must be twice as high as ours and we have Bobby Hull," said Bob Graham, president of Winnipeg Jets. "I kid you not. The Stags' payroll is staggering." Today, promised WHA president Dennis Murphy, the Stags question will be answered. The sentiment, he insisted, is 50-50 in favor of moving the Stags to a new city or absorbing all 29 contracts. League trustees spent six hours discussing the Michigan problem Monday. Only one thing could be certain: the Stags have played their last game in Detroit. General Manager Jim Browitt of the Indianapolis Racers, presumably the first team which would be obliged to pick from the Stags in a reverse draft, said the first thing he would do is sit down and look at all the contracts. "There are some I know already we cannot afford," said Browitt. "How could I justify paying a player from Michigan twice as much as one of my best players?" Browitt did confess he would be most interested in left-winger Danny Gruen. "We could live with his salary and, besides, I feel he is a fine young hockey player." Baltimore continued to be mentioned as the likeliest city to absorb the Stags. Murphy said two group had expressed interest in the team in Baltimore, though none is represented at meetings held in conjunction with the WHA's third All-Star game. A grim-faced Johnny Wilson, coach of the Stags, arrived to witness the fate of his team in person. "I feel that had we been allowed to continue, uninterrupted, we would have established a base of 6,000 fans this season," said Wilson. "There must be 35,000 good hockey fans in all of Detroit who would have come to see us." Wilson again compared the Stags to a plane flying in a holding position, "waiting for an opening to descend and land in a new city." To scatter the team over 13 other cities, however, is a task once considered most practical but is gradually becoming regarded as totally uneconomical. "Too many teams are already too busy dumping high-salaried, non-productive players to run the risk of adopting more. It may come down to sheer abandonment. As one delegate put it, "There isn't a judge in the world who would believe those players are worth those salaries." Meanwhile, it couldn't get any more embarrassing for Michigan no matter what the league does with the team. The luckless Stags, who have lost most of their games this season, lost their shirts Saturday. They were ordered by the WHA to discard their own jerseys and wear monogramless uniforms in their match at Cleveland. The Crusaders won 2-1 in what may have been the financially-plagued club's last game. The WHA, apparently afraid of a lawsuit from the former Stags owners over use of the Michigan uniforms, had white jerseys with blue trim waiting for the Stags in Cleveland. The pants for the jerseys came with purple pants. "It was embarrassing," coach Wilson said. "We didn't wear the purple pants, though. We wore our own black ones. Purple pants and red, white and blue sweaters?"

Stags in Baltimore; AHL Clippers Disband no byline Associated Press January 24, 1975 The World Hockey Association and city officials announced Thursday that the team will operate here as Baltimore Blades for the remainder of the season. At a news conference at the Civic Center, where the Blades will play their home games, WHA president Dennis Murphy said the league would run the club to be stocked with players of the now-defunct Stags. Murphy said talks are under way to find private owners. "We are hopeful of presenting a local ownership group by the end of the season." Thursday night's game scheduled between the Stags and Toronto Toros has been postponed. No make-up date has been announced. The Blades will play four road games before making their first Baltimore appearance Feb. 2 against the Houston Aeros. Mayor William Donald Schaefer, whose administration worked for more than a year to bring a WHA franchise to the city, said the move "puts Baltimore in the company of other major league cities in North American Hockey." "The shifting of the team here has happened somewhat suddenly, but we could not afford to pass up the opportunity which had presented itself." The Blades, in last place in the Western Division with a 13-21-3 record, replace Baltimore Clippers of the American Hockey League. Zanvyl Krieger, president of the Clippers, announced earlier Thursday that the team has been dissolved. Krieger said that since the formation of the WHA three years ago the Clippers have taken "substantial losses." The team averaged only 4,900 fans for home games at the 10,000-seat Civic Centre. Despite the Clippers' lack of success in drawing fans, Mayor Schaefer, Murphy and Johnny Wilson, the Blades coach and general manager, expressed confidence that the team would be a success at the gate. "We have a good mix to offer the fans," Wilson said. "We have some aggressive players and some finesse players. We'll give the fans what they want to see." Murphy said the terms of the agreement include a payment to the city of $500 for each of the Blades' 17 remaining home games with the city returning to the team half of its 40-percent gross of concession sales. The last hurdle to bringing a WHA team here was cleared last week when the city agreed to wipe out some $80,000 in back rent the Clippers owed for use of the Civic Centre. In return, the Clippers gave up their exclusive ice rights at the municipally-owned arena. Murphy said the Blades will be operated by a group known as Baltimore Hockey Inc.

_______________________________________

Home • Credits & Legal Stuff