Bill Hunter, 82; Founder of World Hockey Assn.

Bill Hunter, a legendary name in Canadian hockey who co-founded the Edmonton Oilers and the upstart World Hockey Assn., has died. He was 82.

Hunter, who was known to hockey fans as “Wild Bill” and was fondly dubbed the king of hyperbole by sportswriters, died Monday in a hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, after a three-year battle with bone cancer.

Hunter was part of a group of investors who launched the World Hockey Assn. in 1972 to compete against the National Hockey League and bring professional hockey to new markets.

Hunter, who secured a franchise for Edmonton and convinced officials to build the Northlands Coliseum for the Oilers, became president of the new league.

In a move that gave the new league instant credibility, the WHA’s Winnipeg Jets in 1972 signed the Chicago Black Hawks’ scoring star Bobby Hull to a $1-million contract, the first seven-figure deal in professional hockey.

Hunter’s ownership group sold the Oilers in 1976, three years before the Oilers and three other WHA teams joined the NHL after the failed WHA broke up -- and well before the Oilers became a Stanley Cup dynasty with players such as Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier.

Gretzky this week called Hunter “the father of hockey in Edmonton.”

“The bottom line: Had it not been for his vision and his dream of building a new arena in Edmonton and bringing the WHA to Edmonton, I’m not sure if the NHL would have come to Alberta,” Gretzky told the Toronto Globe and Mail.

In the early ‘80s, Hunter tried to bring the NHL to Saskatoon, his hometown, in what he envisioned as his legacy. He bought the St. Louis Blues for $12 million and convinced city officials to build a $44-million, 18,000-seat arena.

But in 1983 the NHL’s board of governors, unconvinced that the city of 160,000 could support a big-league franchise, voted to block the Blues’ transfer north.

“I still have Saskatchewan people say to me, ‘Thank you for almost getting us in the NHL,’ ” Hunter said in a recent interview. “We were so close we could taste it.”

Born in Saskatoon, in central Saskatchewan, Hunter was still in high school when he organized and funded his first team: a junior football team that eventually became the Saskatoon Hilltops.

At Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, Hunter managed the college’s sports teams.

After flying with the Royal Air Force’s International Squadron during World War II, Hunter ran a wholesale grocery business and established a sporting goods store in Saskatchewan.

But beginning in 1946, he began a quarter-century of owning, managing and coaching minor league hockey teams in half a dozen Canadian cities, including Saskatoon and Edmonton.

In 1966, he joined a group of hockey team owners to form the Western Junior Hockey League. Now known as the Western Hockey League, it became one of the largest junior leagues in the world.

Hunter earned his “Wild Bill” nickname from a referee during a vociferous argument Hunter had with the referee as the coach of a minor league team in 1949.

Hunter reportedly never cared for the nickname, but he defended it in his autobiography, “Wild Bill: Bill Hunter’s Legendary 65 Years in Canadian Sport,” published in 2000.

“If to be passionate and emotional looks wild to some people, so be it,” he wrote.

“If that’s what Wild Bill means, it’s a compliment and I hope the name always remains appropriate.”

His reputation as the king of hyperbole was also well-earned.

When the formation of the WHA was announced at a news conference in New York in 1971, Hunter greeted the media with, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the greatest day in the history of the world.”

He is survived by his fourth wife, Vi; seven children; and six grandchildren.