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The 1979 merger of the NHL and WHA was the culmination of several years of negotiations between the National Hockey League (NHL) and the World Hockey Association (WHA) that resulted in four WHA franchises, the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets joining the NHL for the 1979–80 season. The agreement ended the seven-year existence of the WHA and re-established the NHL as the lone major league in North American professional ice hockey. The two leagues had discussed the possibility of merging for numerous years, despite the acrimonious relationship between the two after the WHA aggressively recruited NHL players upon the former's founding in 1971. The two sides came close to an agreement in 1977, but the merger was defeated by a group of hard-line NHL owners. The NHL also initially rejected the 1979 agreement by one vote. However, a massive boycott of Molson products in Canada led the Montreal Canadiens, who were owned by the Molson family, to reverse their position in a second vote along with the Vancouver Canucks, allowing the plan to pass. As part of the agreement, the NHL treated it more as an expansion rather than an outright merger. The former WHA clubs were stripped of most of their players and permitted to keep only two goaltenders and two skaters, and NHL teams were given the right to reclaim players from the WHA clubs without compensation. The four former WHA teams were also placed at the end of the draft order for the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, as opposed to previous NHL expansion teams, which had been placed at the front of the draft order. ==Background== Since the demise of the Western Canada Hockey League in 1926, the NHL had existed as the only major professional North American ice hockey league. After dwindling to the Original Six in 1942, the NHL remained stable until the 1960s. Following speculation that the Western Hockey League intended to declare itself a major league, the NHL was entertaining serious expansion discussions by 1963, culminating four years later with the addition of six new teams for the 1967–68 NHL season. The WHA was founded in 1971 with ten teams, and intended to operate as a direct competitor to the NHL. By the time the 1972–73 WHA season began, 67 NHL players had defected to the new league. Former Chicago Blackhawks star Bobby Hull lent immediate credibility to the fledgling circuit when he signed a 10-year contract with the Winnipeg Jets for $2.7 million, the largest in hockey history at the time.〔 The NHL attempted to block the defections in court, earning an injunction against the Jets that initially prevented several players, including Hull, from playing in the WHA. The new league challenged the orders, stating that the NHL's reserve clause, which tied players' rights to their NHL team for life, was illegal.〔 A Philadelphia district court sided with the WHA in November 1972, striking down the reserve clause and freeing all players to play in the WHA. The ruling ended the NHL's monopoly on talent.〔 The WHA also challenged the NHL by placing teams in markets already served by the NHL, including the Philadelphia Blazers (Philadelphia Flyers), Vancouver Blazers (Vancouver Canucks), Toronto Toros (Toronto Maple Leafs), and Chicago Cougars (Chicago Black Hawks), among others. The WHA's existence led the NHL to expand hastily to Atlanta, Georgia and Long Island, New York in 1972 to keep the rival league out of the newly completed Omni Coliseum and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「NHL–WHA merger」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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