{"id":18625,"date":"2017-10-11T15:53:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18625"},"modified":"2017-10-11T15:53:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T19:53:00","slug":"hockey-journeyman-gets-call-to-the-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hockey-journeyman-gets-call-to-the-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Hockey journeyman gets call to the Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the NHL expanded from six to twelve teams in 1967, an unprecedented move in North American professional sports, there was a period of utter chaos for both executives and players alike.
\nBob Wall, who will see his name inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame in November, was smack dab in the middle of it.
\nBorn just outside of Aurora in Oak Ridges in 1942, Wall cut his teeth with the Aurora Bantam and Aurora Midget minor systems as a defenseman, before earning the chance to join the Junior A Hamilton Red Wings at the age of 16.
\nThree stellar seasons with the Wings, including a nod as Rookie of the Year and a Memorial Cup as league champions, advanced Wall to the AHL level where he found success with the Pittsburgh Hornets in 1965 through to 1967, the year of the expansion.
\nWith scores of opportunities available to play in the greatest league on earth and executives desperately looking to fill out rosters, communication was a difficult task. Mr. Wall found out he was claimed in the Expansion Draft by the Los Angeles Kings by reading about it in the Toronto Star, finding himself named captain at camp just a few months later, the first in the franchise\u2019s history.
\nHe immediately negotiated a three-month contract with Larry Regan, the General Manager of the Kings.
\n\u201cWe had no agents in those days,\u201d said Mr. Wall. \u201cYou had to negotiate yourself. And, quote, $18,000 for the first year, $21,000 for the second and $23,000 for the third.
\n\u201cI was happy. I was really happy. That meant I didn\u2019t have to work in the summer and my wife didn\u2019t have to work.\u201d
\nMr. Wall spent three full seasons with the Kings, before finding himself hopping between teams in the AHL, CHL, and NHL, playing 25 games with newly-minted St. Louis Blues in 1970-71 and the Detroit Red Wings in 1971-72.
\nClosing out his career in the budding World Hockey Association was perhaps where he found the most success, where at the age of thirty in 1973-74 he put up 45 points with the Alberta Oilers, who became the Edmonton Oilers the following season.
\nHe returned to Aurora following his playing career, taking up coaching positions for four years, and now owns Tim Hortons franchises.
\nMr. Wall is one of four inductees into this year\u2019s Aurora Sports Hall of Fame class, all inducted under the \u201cAthletes\u201d category.
\nMr. Wall has been inducted to the ASHoF alongside Dan Thompson, a record-breaking swimmer, William Fleury, a pioneer in the Canadian cricket community, and Mike Palmateer, a prolific ex-Toronto Maple Leaf goaltender.
\n\u201cMy childhood dream was to play in the NHL,\u201d said Mr. Wall. \u201cI was given the chance to play hockey in Aurora and that is where I was discovered, so to be in the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame is a fantastic honour.\u201d
\nHeld annually at St. Andrew\u2019s College, the ASHoF Induction dinner is one of the most spectacular nights of the calendar year in the Aurora sports community. This year\u2019s dinner will be held on November 8, and more information can be found at www.aurorashof.ca.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the NHL expanded from six to twelve teams in 1967, an unprecedented move in North American professional sports, there was a period of utter chaos for both executives and players alike. Bob Wall, who will see his name inducted into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame in November, was smack dab in the middle of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Qp","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-10 13:56:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}