Bill Hunter William Dickenson ( " Wild Bill " ) Hunter , ( May 5 , 1920 - December 16 , 2002 ) was a Canadian hockey player , general manager and coach . Hunter was involved in ice hockey , Canadian football , baseball , softball and curling but he is best known for founding the Western Hockey League , being a key player in the upstart World Hockey Association and for his efforts to bring professional hockey to previously overlooked western Canadian cities , especially in Edmonton and ( unsuccessfully ) in Saskatoon , Saskatchewan . Early years . Hunter was born in Saskatoon and founded his first competitive sports team when he was 18 . Hunter ' s " Saskatoon Dukes " football club eventually became the Saskatoon Hilltops who as of 2004 had won 12 national junior titles . Hunter then attended Notre Dame College in Wilcox , Saskatchewan from 1938 to 1940 , where he managed the college baseball team . Following the outbreak of World War II Hunter left school to join the Royal Canadian Air Force and served for about four years as a pilot based in England . He returned to Saskatoon in 1944 where he worked briefly for CFQC Radio before opening Hunter ' s Sporting Goods in North Battleford the following year . Between 1945 and 1949 Hunter coached and managed hockey teams in North Battleford , Regina , Moose Jaw and Yorkton . It was during these years that Hunter was nicknamed " Wild Bill " following a dispute with a referee . Hunter did not like the nickname especially at first , but it stuck with him for the rest of his life . In 1950 Hunter founded the first curling bonspiel ( tournament ) to be held on artificial ice , the Quaker Car Curling Bonspiel . He also managed and coached the Saskatoon Quakers hockey club until 1952 . From 1953 to 1955 he owned , managed and coached the Medicine Hat Tigers . The Birth of the WHL . By 1965 Hunter was owner , general manager and coach of the Edmonton Oil Kings . The Oil Kings won the Memorial Cup in 1966 , but by then Hunter was arguing that the competitive structure of the game in Western Canada was putting the region at a disadvantage to stronger leagues in Ontario and Quebec . Each Western province still had its own junior league while Hunter believed the West needed a single elite junior league to compete effectively . Following a dispute with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League president and with the support of several other owners , Hunter formed the " Western Canadian Hockey League " ( now the Western Hockey League ) in 1967 with Hunter becoming the first chairman of the WCHL board . The new " Outlaw League " was not welcomed by everyone with open arms and it would be a few years before the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association allowed its champion to compete for the Memorial Cup , but it soon proved too strong for the provincial leagues to ignore and they soon stopped competing for the trophy . By 1972 the Memorial Cup ' s modern round - robin format was established - since then the WHL has won the Memorial Cup more times than any other league . The Birth of the Edmonton Oilers and the WHA . Following the establishment of what would become the WHL Hunter turned his efforts toward professional hockey . The NHL was expanding but it was not interested in Hunter ' s proposal for an expansion franchise to play in Edmonton . Hunter offered to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins but this proposal was also rebuffed . In 1971 , Hunter was introduced to Gary Davidson and Dennis Murphy , two promoters who were interested in establishing a rival league . The World Hockey Association started play in 1972 with Hunter as owner , general manager and , by the halfway point , head coach of the Alberta Oilers , who were renamed the Edmonton Oilers the following season . Although the Oilers were a mediocre team on the ice , they were among the fledgling league ' s most financially stable franchises , especially after the completion of Northlands Coliseum in 1975 . By the time the Oilers had joined the NHL in 1979 , Hunter had sold the team to Nelson Skalbania , who in turn sold the franchise to Peter Pocklington . The " Saskatchewan Blues " . Hunter made one more serious attempt to bring a professional team to Western Canada when in 1982 he offered to purchase the financially struggling St . Louis Blues and move the team to his hometown . The offer raised many eyebrows even in Canada as few thought an NHL team could survive in a relatively small city . Nonetheless , Hunter was able to obtain commitments for 18 , 000 season tickets as well as for an 18 , 000 seat arena . This did not prove sufficient for the NHL Board of Governors , who blocked the transaction even though doing so forced the league to take over the team itself . However , Hunter ' s efforts did not prove completely fruitless , as the city eventually built Saskatchewan Place in 1988 , although many Saskatonians felt the location chosen for the facility was inferior to the site Hunter had proposed for his centre . Following his death , the City of Saskatoon renamed a street near Saskatchewan Place after Hunter . He is considered a hero in Saskatchewan sports history . Later years . Following his attempt to bring the Blues to Saskatoon , Hunter organized softball tournaments in Saskatoon before investing in the San Diego Gulls hockey club in 1990 . He remained somewhat active in the 1990s , helping to organize the Flexi - Coil curling cashspiel in his hometown before his health began to fail . He was awarded the Order of Canada in 2000 and was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 2001 . Hunter died of cancer in Edmonton on December 16 , 2002 .