WHA Amateur Draft
The WHA Amateur Draft was the talent recruitment of the professional ice hockey league World Hockey Association , which was founded in 1972 and merged with the National Hockey League in 1979 due to financial problems . The Amateur Draft was held once in 1973 to 1977, but since the NHL was a traditional competitive league, only a few drafted players played in the WHA and instead preferred a career in the NHL. For example, only three of the 15 players selected in the first round from 1975 even played in the WHA. Sometimes they tried to lure the talent with very high salaries, like Pat Price , who received a starting salary of $ 1.3 million, which even nowadays no league newcomer is paid.
In 1977 the last amateur draft was held because the league decided that the teams should sign young players directly as free agents in order to outdo the NHL teams with lower salaries. In 1978 the Indianapolis Racers signed Wayne Gretzky . In addition, Gretzky was only 17 years old and the NHL teams were only allowed to sign players who are at least 18 years old.
Of the first chosen, Bob Neely and Blair Chapman never played in the WHA, Pat Price left the league after a year, only Claude Larose and Scott Campbell played a little longer in the WHA.