Back in those (mostly) innocent days when I was a kid, one sports story that worked its way through my Grade Four classroom was the sordid tale of a couple of New York Yankees pitchers that swapped their entire families.  Not just their wives, but also their kids and their dogs.  No word if the furniture was thrown in, or if there was a set-of-dishes to be named later.

Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson were solid pitchers for the Yankees, but to a bunch of nine-year-old growing up in suburban Edmonton, these guys were as famous as Reggie Jackson or Catfish Hunter.

It was just plain weird what the southpaws did, never mind what your personal morals may be.  Sure, it was the early 70’s, and the hangover from the technicolour Sixties was upon us, but this went beyond wife swapping.  To this day, I still scratch my head at the notion.

Hockey, being a mostly conservative sport in almost every aspect of that definition, has never publicly had the same arrangement, though you hear stuff sometimes you can’t repeat, though no doubt someone is squirreling it all away for a future tell-all book.

So it comes as a complete shock to me that former Edmonton Oilers’ owner Peter Pocklington reveals in, what else, his new book, that at one point during the early 1980’s, two National Hockey League teams almost went all Kekich/Peterson, and pulled off the most outrageous trade in the history of sports.

Having obviously squirreled away a ton of inside stories over the years, along with a map of where all the bodies are buried, Peter Puck has grabbed the attention for his new book he hoped he would by revealing that he worked out a deal with Toronto Maple Leafs’ legendary owner Harold Ballard that would have seen the two men swap teams.

Swap teams.  Completely.  Which means the fine folk of Edmonton would have been saddled with the complete roster of the early 80’s Maple Leafs, just in time to watch the young guns of the Oilers emege as one of the greatest teams in NHL history.  The trouble is, those young bucks would have been hoisting all those Stanley Cups dressed in Maple Leaf blue.  Worse, the city of Edmonton would have had Ballard within their city borders.

Apparently, for whatever reason, Ballard changed his mind and the entire thing was scuttled.

The mind is boggled at the implications of such a wholesale trade, if it had been allowed to proceed.  Since such a possibility reads like science fiction, let’s put on the Spock ears and follow the changes that would have occurred to our timeline, if that deal had actually gone forward.

It should be noted that the pebble in the pond, check that, the giant boulder in the pond that the Oilers-Leafs swap would have been to the rest of the NHL would have had far-reaching implications, that would still be felt to this day.

The Edmonton Oilers would have moved years ago, if that deal had materialized.  Most likely, the Houston Oilers would have had to wait until the death of Ballard, and the battle over his diminished estate had been settled, before they could finally concentrate on the business of hockey, and during the 1995-96 season, Houston would win the Stanley Cup.

The Quebec Nordiques would still be in the league, though they never would have ended up with goaltender Patrick Roy, and thus, to this day, the Nordiques still would not have won the Stanley Cup, and there are still concerns about building a new arena.  There are whispers the team may move to Kansas City.

Roy would remain with the Montreal Canadiens, though head coach Mario Tremblay would have lost his job as a result.  The Canadiens would make the Cup Final in 1998, losing to the Detroit Red Wings.

The Nordiques would not have been in position to draft Eric Lindros first overall in 1991; that honour went to the Edmonton Oilers, who had earlier traded the rights to the New Jersey Devils for Tom Kurvers, and it was the Devils who took Lindros first that year.

Lindros would thrive in the Swamp, and he never suffered a concussion from that devastating Scott Stevens open-ice hit, as they were on the same team.  Lindros would retire as a member of the Devils, having won three Stanley Cups, in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

A young Peter Forsberg would captain the Philadelphia Flyers to the 1995 Cup.

If Pocklington had ended up with his young team in Toronto, he would have most likely made a ton of cash over what he realized in Northern Alberta.  Even with his business problems that existed in other industries he ran (Gainers Foods), Peter Puck would have not needed to cash in his depreciating asset known as Wayne Gretzky.  Even if he later broke up the Boys On The Bus, odds are Bruce McNall would have been exposed as a charlatan by then, which means the Great One doesn’t end up in L.A, after winning five Cups with Toronto.

Let’s say, instead, Gretzky is traded by the Leafs to the Rangers.  It is he, in 1994, that hoists the Stanley Cup over his head, as the Broadway Blueshirts end their 54-year drought.

As for the Kings, they continue to flounder, though the NHL props them up financially.  As a result, there isn’t a mad rush to pan fool’s gold in the U.S. south, meaning that the likes of the Anaheim Ducks and Florida Panthers never come-to-be.

The NHL still would expand to Ottawa and Tampa, though the Lightning are moved to Minnesota, and that’s where they win the Stanley Cup in 2004 over the Flyers.

The Thrashers and Predators never see the light-of-day, though Penguins’ owner Mario Lemieux threatens to move his team to Nashville if he doesn’t get a sweetheart arena deal from the city of Pittsburgh.

The league is impressed with the Nashville bid, and promises to consider expansion to Tennessee, and Kansas City, in the near future.  Canadian billionaire businessman Jim Balsillie, by now a personal friend of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, is often mentioned as the owner of a Nashville NHL franchise.

No-one ever hears about William Boots Del Biaggio.

The Islanders still need a new arena, and threaten to move to Hamilton, which Pocklington blocks.

The Winnipeg Jets still move to Phoenix, as the NHL is emboldened by the relative success of the Houston Oilers and Dallas Stars, though even in this alternative timeline, the Coyotes still lose a ton of money.

The North Stars have moved to Dallas, setting up a great rivalry with Houston, but overall, the NHL have dipped a tentative toe into the expansion waters, instead of diving in headfirst, and ending up with the fractured neck they have now.

Which only goes to prove that in every scenario, no matter how bleak, no matter how wacky, there is always a sliver of hope.

Makes me wish Ballard didn’t get cold feet.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s