Chicago Cougars The Chicago Cougars were a professional team founded in 1972 and based in Chicago , Illinois , United - States that played in the World Hockey Association . The Cougars were short - lived and folded in 1975 . History . Shaky beginnings . Expected to to become one of the league ' s cornerstones , the team started with some difficulties as it was forced to change ownership before even playing a single game . Jordon and William Kaiser , local businessmen , finally secured the franchise - those ownership problems made it difficult for the team to sign players to fill their roster and they could only start well into the 1972 summer . The Kaisers had much to do : only a few months prior to the beginning of the inaugural season , a single player was under contract with the team . It was Bob Kelly , formerly of the Philadelphia Flyers - who switched back to the NHL before the season began ! The ownership attempted to raid their NHL rival , the Chicago Black Hawks , in order to sign their players . They even attempted to sign Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita ! They lacked success in their attempt however ; the only Black Hawks players they could sign were Bob Sicinski , Rick Morris and Dan Lodboa - all three of them being minor league r in their system and not even Black Hawks regulars . On the other hand , Bobby Hull did move to the WHA , but with the Winnipeg Jets instead of the Chicago Cougars . All in all , the Cougars ended up signing a whole bunch of minor league players and only a couple of NHL players , such as veteran s Reg Fleming and Larry Cahan or Rosaire Paiement . The result was nothing convincing . Head coach Marcel Pronovost led the team to a 2 - 12 - 1 record to start the season on a pretty bad note . The situation seldom improved during the season , which ended on a dismal 1 - 12 - 0 run . With only 26 wins and 50 losses in 78 games , the Cougars finished the season dead last in the league with , to make matters worse , the fewest goals for total in the league with 245 . The lackluster offense of the team nevertheless provided a couple pleasant surprises . Bob Sicinski topped the team in scoring with 88 points . Paiement and Fleming also performed well , while Dane Poul Popiel and Rick Morris both scored 31 goals . While the defense was generally porous , goalie Jim McLeod did manage to play well , almost managing a . 500 win percentage . Sadly , André Gill did not do as well , with a 4 - 24 - 0 record between the pipes . The surprise . In the summer of 73 , the Cougars resumed their policy of raiding the Black Hawks . This time , they were more succesful , as they managed to sign centre Ralph Backstrom ( whose WHA rights belonged to the Los Angeles Sharks ) , long - time Black Hawk veterans Pat Stapleton and Eric Nesterenko , as well as Darryl Maggs . Stapleton , a fan favourite in Chicago , became the team ' s player - coach and gave some credibility to the formerly dismal defence of the Cougars , who went on to a 38 - 35 - 5 record , a massive improvement from their inaugural season . This ensured they could make the playoffs by barely finishing before the Quebec Nordiques . If their season was average , their playoffs run was nothing short of exceptional , on and off the ice . The first round went normally , as the Cougars defeated the New England Whalers in seven games . When they returned home to meet the Toronto Toros , the Cougars had quite a big surprise : they realized that their normal home , the International Amphitheatre , had been booked to host a production of " Peter Pan " and thus was unavailable , in an incident that was dubbed the Peter Pan Incident . The Cougars tried to negotiate playing in Chicago Black Hawks ' s Chicago Stadium , but the Hawks were in the NHL playoffs and needed their rink . They had to play their home matches at the Randhurst Twin Ice Arena , a suburban public skating rink that could host a mere 2000 people . Chicago went through the second round as winners and were to face the Houston Aeros in the Finals for the AVCO World Trophy . Hopeful to retrieve their home ice as the Peter Pan show was gone , the Cougars discovered that for some unknown reason , the ice of their rink had been melted and the copper pipes chilling the ice were uncovered and being dismantled for the offseason . The Cougars had to return to Randhurst and never recovered from those public relationship mistakes , losing the the powerful Houston Aeros in four straight games . A last run . The Cougars approached their third season in 1974 - 75 with much hope . They had further improved their squad with the arrival of top goaltender Dave Dryden and centre Gary MacGregor , fresh from a solid 100 goals 174 points season in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with the Cornwall Royals . But there were signs of more troubled times to come . The Kaisers were losing money in the adventure . Visibly , the Hawks fans were not willing to abandon their beloved team to jump into the Cougar bandwagon and the team ' s fan base remained poor . They managed to fill half of the 9 , 000 seats International Amphitheater in their first season , and the numbers kept dwindling ever since . This was nothing to help on - ice performances be stellar . The Kaisers decided to get rid of the team and sold it to Backstrom , Dryden and Stapleton on December 28th 1974 - it was the first time active players of a sports team purchased their own team and controlled its destiny . In front of an average 3 , 000 fans , the Cougars missed the playoffs in what became their last season , posting a 30 - 47 - 1 record , good for 61 points - 20 less than the previous season . Gary MacGregor delivered excellent performances with 42 goals and 76 points . Rosaire Paiement had 74 points ; the rest of team trailed behind . Frank Rochon enjoyed a 21 goals rookie season . The sale of the Cougars to the players was not to their advantage . They did not have access to the season tickets ' money , which remained in the Kaisers ' pockets . Since the turn - out at the gates was never good , the players lost a lot of money and were forced to fold the team at the end of the season . In May 1975 , a fair part of the team ' s players was transferred to the upstart Denver Spurs , furthermore marking the death of the Cougars . Another handicapping factor for the team was the lack of an arena of their own . Agreements to get a new one built , the Rosemont Horizon , had been achieved , but the lack of success of the team hinged the building , which in turn hurt the team even more . Even after the Cougars folded , various delays kept the arena from being built before 1980 . Season - by - season record . " Note : GP = Games played , W = Wins , L = Losses , T = Ties , Pts = Points , GF = Goals for , GA = Goals against , PIM = Penalties in minutes " Franchise scoring leaders . These are the top - ten point - scorers in the history of the Cougars . " Note : GP = Games Played , G = Goals , A = Assists , Pts = Points , P / G = Points Per Game , * = Active Player "