Hint, Only one Oiler has worn Number 3

The other day the Edmonton Oilers announced their new captain.
Tom Renney made a fine choice when he selected Shawn Horcoff.
The $7,000,000 man.
Horcov!

But, there was a troubling side to the announcement.
The Oilers Traintrust can't count.
This might explain their troubles with the CBA.
They announced Horcoff as the 13th Captain of the Oilers.
In fact he is the Oilers' 16th captain.

On this day in 1972, it was a Wednesday that year, The Oilers' first Captain led them onto the ice at the Ottawa Civic Center.
The Oilers' hosts in that funky 9,500 seat arena were the Ottawa Nationals.  The two franchises met opening night, and they were still banging heads in the WHA's final season.
You have to follow the bouncing ball though, Ottawa Nationals became the Toronto Toros became the Birmingham Bulls.
A little over 5,000 were in attendance that night in Ottawa.
Let's face it, there was hardly a rivalry.
No blogger comments about how "Guy Trottier was a wuss when he played for the Laffs and he's an even bigger wuss for jumpin' to the Gnats." were to be found anywhere.
[Blogging was much different in those times.]

No doubt the CBC also played a roll in the the attendance numbers.
I know this because whatever the CBC does is wrong.
But in this case their national broadcast of the game wasn't blacked-out in Ottawa.
Don Wittman did the play by play.
You're thinking "Don Wittman, the HNIC guy? Cool"
Wrong.  Wittman was on the CBC's B-Team in those days.
One published review of his performance noted that Wittman "May or may not have been chosen for the prairie-flat quality of his voice, which exactly suited the tempo of the game."

The tempo was a little slow. A little disappointing.
NHL contracts ran October 1 to October 1 in those times.
So, all the guys who had jumped from the NHL couldn't start practicing with their new teams until 10 days before the season started.

Still, considering you could attend for a as little as $3.50, the game had its moments. [$3.50 is what it cost me to see April Wine in concert that same winter]

The Oilers' Ron Anderson scored the first goal in the WHA at 4:19 of he first period.  He encored with a second late in the middle period. Two goals in Game 1, twelve over the next 77.

The man the Canadiens thought might replace Rocket Richard, Bill Hicke, scored the Oilers second goal on a Penalty Shot and a third 15 seconds later.

The Oilers led 3-1, 6-2 and 7-4 by periods, but were outshot by the Gnats 33-31. No fights.  You had to go to a LA Sharks game for good fisticuff action that first WHA season.

Meanwhile, the First Oilers Captain assisted on two goals - Ron Walters' in the second and the Oilers' final goal by Eddie Joyal.