ST. LOUIS — Gather round children for a hockey history lesson. You young Blues fans may not be familiar with the Saskatoon Blues and how close St. Louis came to losing its hockey franchise.
Retired sportscaster Ron Jacober remembers.
"It was panic time for hockey fans in Saint Louis," said the hall of fame broadcaster who spent nearly 50 years covering St. Louis sports at KMOX Radio and KSDK-TV. "I don't think a lot of people realize that we were, the city was days away from losing the hockey franchise."
In 1983 Jacober's broadcasting teammate at KMOX Radio was legendary Blues play-by-play man Dan Kelly.
"Dan Kelly walked in and said, 'look what I've got to put on the air'. And he broke the story that Ralston Purina, they owned the hockey team, had come to an agreement to sell the Blues to a guy named Hunter in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Bill Hunter was one of the investors trying to buy the Blues and move them to Saskatchewan. Jacober recalled there were no local buyers.
"Nobody here wanted to buy it," said Jacober. "They couldn't find a buyer in St Louis. And so they (Ralston Purina) decided they would shop it and they shopped it to Saskatoon."
Not so fast. The National Hockey League wasn't about to send the Blues to a small city in Saskatchewan and vetoed the sale. As the chaos grew, at least one Blues player was conflicted: hall of famer Bernie Federko.
"Because that’s my home town Saskatoon and I grew up in Saskatchewan. It was kind of a trying time obviously being a member of the St. Louis Blues, playing in St. Louis for about 7 or 8 years at the time," said Federko. "I think we were kind on the fence because it would have been real nice to go back and play in the home town but it certainly would have been sad to leave St. Louis."
After the NHL vetoed the sale of the Blues to Saskatoon, predictably, billable hours followed.
"Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit because Ralston sued the league. The league turned around and sued Ralston," said Jacober. "The player's association got involved in suing because the players' contracts were up and we came within days of losing this team."
Just when it couldn't get any crazier, it did at the 1983 Entry Draft, where NHL teams draft amateur players. After Minnesota chose Brian Lawton with the first pick of the entry draft, the Blues choice was...no choice.
"It was the first time and only time in the National Hockey League history where a franchise did not take part in the draft and Ralston Purina would not allow anybody from the Blues, even though there were a couple of representatives there from the Blues, they would not allow them to take part in the draft," said Jacober.
With the NHL threatening to dissolve the Blues and sell the player contracts to the rest of the league teams, the franchise needed a hero. It turned out to California businessman Harry Ornest, who bought the Blues and the Checkerdome at bargain basement prices, then gained a reputation for running the Blues on the cheap.
"Whenever I think bad thoughts about Harry Ornest, I realize Harry Orrnest saved the St Louis Blues," said Jacober. "If Harry hadn't come to town, we wouldn't have a hockey team here."
After several years of ownership, Ornest sold the team to a group led by Mike Shanahan. Ornest made a profit of more than $11 million dollars on the hockey team and The St. Louis Arena.