The St. Louis Blues Almost Moved | Here’s What Stopped It
In the long and often brutal history of professional sports, we love stories of triumphant victory and heartbreaking defeat. But the best stories are the ghost stories. The tales of what almost was. Of teams that flickered into existence for a moment, only to be snuffed out before they ever played a single game. This is one of those stories. It’s a story about a maverick, a city, and a dream so audacious it nearly broke the National Hockey League.
In 1983, one man came closer than anyone in history to literally stealing an NHL team. He bought them; he had the money; he had the fans; and he had a home waiting. This is the story of how “Wild” Bill Hunter almost moved the St. Louis Blues to a small Canadian city… and how the league’s old guard made sure it would never, ever happen.
The Maverick and the Pet Food Company
To understand how a city of just 160,000 people almost landed a big-league hockey team, you first have to understand the man pulling the strings: Bill Hunter. If you were to build a hockey promoter in a lab, you’d get someone who looked a lot like him. Hunter was a Saskatchewan native through and through, a force of nature who had spent his entire life in the trenches of Canadian hockey. He founded junior teams, coached, managed, and picked fights with referees—a style that earned him the nickname “Wild Bill.”
But Hunter wasn’t just some small-town operator; he was a visionary. More importantly, he was a disruptor. In the early 1970s, when the NHL was the only game in town, Hunter co-founded the rival World Hockey Association, or WHA. It was a rogue league built to challenge the NHL’s monopoly, and Hunter launched his own team, the Alberta Oilers, in Edmonton. The WHA was a thorn in the NHL’s side for years, and while it eventually folded, it left a permanent mark. Four WHA teams, including Hunter’s Oilers, were absorbed into the NHL in a 1979 merger. Hunter had successfully forced his way into the big leagues. The NHL establishment never forgot it, and they indeed never forgave him for the trouble—and the money—he’d cost them.
By the early 80s, Hunter was out of the Oilers ownership group, but his ambition was bigger than ever. He turned his eyes back home to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His dream was to give his home province the one thing it was missing: an NHL team. All he needed was a target.
And 600 miles to the southeast, a target was bleeding out. The St. Louis Blues were a complete mess. The team was owned by the Ralston Purina Company, a conglomerate famous for making pet food. To them, the Blues weren’t a public trust; they were a money-losing asset on a balance sheet. The company was tired of covering losses and desperately wanted out. The team was put up for sale, its own future as uncertain as a puck on its edge.
The Heist Begins
For Bill Hunter, the Blues’ crisis wasn’t a tragedy—it was the opportunity of a lifetime. He saw a path: a struggling team, a motivated seller, and a province full of hockey-mad fans just waiting to be unleashed. He assembled an investment group and, in early 1983, struck a deal. For a reported $12 million, Hunter’s group agreed to buy the St. Louis Blues from Ralston Purina.
The plan was simple and, to the rest of the hockey world, absolutely insane: pack up the team and move it, lock, stock, and barrel, to Saskatoon. The St. Louis Blues would become the Saskatoon Blues.
In Saskatoon, the news landed like a cultural earthquake. The city and the entire province were instantly electrified. It felt like a dream come true. For decades, Saskatchewan had been a breeding ground for NHL talent, exporting its sons to play for teams in other, bigger cities. Now, they were about to get a team of their own. Bill Hunter was bringing the big leagues home. The only thing standing in his way was a little formality: a vote of approval from the NHL’s Board of Governors. For a man who had already strong-armed his way into the NHL once before, this felt like the final step, not a barrier. He was about to learn that the league’s gatekeepers have very, very long memories.
We will have a team
Hunter didn’t just wait around for the league’s blessing. He went on a full-blown offensive to prove that this impossible idea was not only possible but a guaranteed success. He was a master promoter, a preacher at the pulpit of puck. He held dinners and press conferences, his voice booming with unshakable confidence. To a packed house in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, he declared, “We will have an NHL team in Saskatchewan this fall. People say it can’t be done. The hell with them. It can be done, and it will be done.”
He argued that a team in Saskatoon wouldn’t just be supported by the city, but by the whole province, just like the Canadian Football League’s beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders. And he had proof. In a stunning show of support, Hunter’s group secured pledges for over 18,000 season tickets before the team even had a name. That was more than enough to fill the brand-new, 18,000-seat arena he planned to build.
The pieces were coming together with breathtaking speed. Hunter had a commitment for a new, state-of-the-art downtown arena. He landed a massive $20 million, 20-year sponsorship deal with the Canadian brewing giant Molson. He even entered into serious negotiations with the legendary Don Cherry to be the team’s first head coach. This wasn’t some fantasy; it was a meticulously planned operation. From airline routes to television rights, Hunter had an answer for everything. The Saskatoon Blues felt real. They felt inevitable. In the minds of the people of Saskatchewan, the team was already theirs.
The Empire Strikes Back
But while Saskatchewan was celebrating, the NHL’s old guard was sharpening its knives. The league’s power brokers, a tight-knit club of owners, looked at Hunter’s plan with a mix of disbelief and sheer contempt. To them, Saskatoon was a backwater. The city was too small, too remote, and frankly, not worthy of a place at their exclusive table.
The most vocal opponent was Harold Ballard, the notoriously cranky owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ballard openly mocked the idea, famously sneering to the press, “Who the hell wants to go to Saskatoon, anyway? I don’t want to be taking dogsleds to get around.”
But the opposition wasn’t just about snobbery; it was about money and turf. The owners of the other Western Canadian teams—the Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, and Winnipeg Jets—saw a team in Saskatoon as a direct threat to their bottom line. For years, they had treated Saskatchewan as their own secondary market, a cash cow for merchandise and ticket sales. A Saskatoon team wasn’t just a new member of the club; it was a competitor poaching their territory. They lobbied hard against the move.
And then there was the issue of Bill Hunter himself. He was the ultimate outsider. The man who had launched the WHA, the rival league that had cost them all millions in legal fees and inflated player salaries. He had challenged their authority once, and they had absolutely no intention of letting him win again. For the NHL’s Board of Governors, this vote wasn’t just about the St. Louis Blues or the city of Saskatoon. It was payback.
The Day the Dream Died
On May 18, 1983, Bill Hunter and his partners walked into the NHL Board of Governors meeting in New York to make their final pitch. They laid out their vision: a sold-out arena, a province united, and a franchise that would be the league’s pride. They had the money, they had the fan support, and they legally owned the team. All they needed was for the league to say yes.
The governors listened. And then they voted.
The result was a massacre. The board voted 15-to-3 against the relocation. In one cold, swift motion, the dream was executed. The official reasons given were that Saskatoon was too small and its arena hadn’t built yet. But everyone in the room knew the real reasons. It was about protecting turf and punishing Bill Hunter for his past sins.
The news hit Saskatchewan like a physical blow. The six months of euphoria and fevered dreaming crashed into dust. Hunter himself was gutted. “We were so close we could taste it,” he would later say.
The fallout was immediate and chaotic. An infuriated Ralston Purina, their deal now dead, essentially abandoned the team on the NHL’s doorstep. In an unprecedented act of protest, the company refused to participate in the upcoming 1983 NHL Entry Draft. For the first and only time in league history, a team skipped the draft, forfeiting all of its picks. For a few terrifying weeks in the summer of ‘83, the St. Louis Blues ceased to exist. The NHL was forced to take control of the franchise, and it came perilously close to being dissolved entirely before a last-minute buyer, Harry Ornest, was found to keep the team in St. Louis.
The Aftermath
Bill Hunter’s grand heist had failed. He was offered the option to buy the Blues and keep them in St. Louis, but he declined. For him, it was “Saskatoon or bust.” He had promised his home province a team, and he wouldn’t settle for anything less.
Saskatoon did eventually build its arena. Saskatchewan Place opened in 1988, though not in the downtown location Hunter had championed. It was a great building, but for many, it felt like a monument to a broken promise. Hunter tried again in the early 1990s, leading a bid for an NHL expansion team. He raised an incredible $50 million toward the fee, but when the provincial government declined to provide the final piece of funding, the bid was withdrawn. The NHL awarded teams to Ottawa and Tampa Bay instead. The dream was now officially dead.
Meanwhile, the man who had laid the groundwork for a dynasty in Edmonton could only watch as the Oilers—the team he founded—rattled off five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990, becoming one of hockey’s greatest teams. It was a bittersweet reminder of what he was capable of building.
Conclusion
Bill Hunter passed away in 2002 at the age of 82, forever remembered as a hockey pioneer and the man who almost brought the NHL to Saskatoon. He was a visionary who saw potential where others saw emptiness, a promoter who dared to kick down the closed doors of a powerful monopoly.
The story of the “Saskatoon Blues” has become a legend, a cautionary tale about the cold, complex business of professional sports. It’s a story of what might have been. What if the vote had gone the other way? Could a team have survived in one of the league’s smallest markets? We’ll never know. But for six wild months in 1983, Bill Hunter made an entire province believe in the impossible. He proved that the unlikeliest of dreams can feel real, right up until the moment they’re crushed. And in doing so, he gave a city a ghost story it will tell for generations to come.
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