Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvanfan
Turns out the Blues completely skipped the 1983 draft. They were angry about the NHL not approving the sale of the team.
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The 'they' in question were the Ralston Purina pet food company. They had conditionally sold the team to Bill Hunter, founding president of the WHA and the original owner of the Edmonton Oilers, who was going to move the team to Saskatoon. The NHL board of governors refused to approve the sale to Hunter at a meeting only three weeks before the draft, and by that time Ralston Purina had already terminated most of the team staff, knowing they weren't going along to Saskatoon. Blues GM Emile Francis had been let out of his contract a couple weeks earlier and had already been named GM of the Whalers.
Hunter formally withdrew his offer to buy the team a week before the draft, and the Ralston Purina execs told the NHL league office: "fine, if you ###holes won't let us sell the team to the highest bidder, you either buy it from us or we'll liquidate this precious 'franchise' of yours and take a one-time write-down on our corporate books. We'll burn it to the ground rather than sink any more money into it."
So, with no front office staff to actually conduct any team business and essentially an absentee owner who had precisely no ####s left to give, the Blues franchise just didn't participate in the 1983 draft.