Wild Bill

His name is William Dickenson Hunter, but to generations of Canadian sports fans he’s known best as Wild Bill. Part showman, salesman, rebel, visionary, and 100 percent lover of the game of hockey, Bill Hunter has been witness to and part of the lore and the history of Canadian sports for over six decades. Bill Hunter formed his first team at age 17, when he toured a baseball club through dust-bowl Saskatchewan. Since then he’s owned or managed many franchises—from ladies softball to junior hockey to pro hockey to big-money curling. Pro hockey changed forever when he threw his weight behind the short-lived, colorful World Hockey Association, which broke the National Hockey League’s stranglehold on the game and brought hockey into the modern era. He brought Edmonton the Oilers, and he fought valiantly to bring Saskatoon the Blues. And along the way, his on- and off-ice antics made great sports-page copy for decades. They called him Wild Bill for a reason. At age 82 and among the last of the great hockey showmen, his business card reads: "Bill Hunter, Sports Entrepreneur, Not Retired." And he means it.