Heres the ultimate longshot, but I often dream this could happen:
The WHA's rights are bought from the current owners by 18 multi-billionaire hockey fanatics. They proceed to recreate the WHA a-new for the THIRD time, only this time they BUILD 18 new 17,000 seat arenas in the following new WHA cities seperated by country: In the American Conference there'd be Hartford, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Green Bay and Minnesota. And in the Canadian Conference you'd have Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City. Each WHA game would be an experience: Fireworks, laser light shows, free giveaways, dancers, and free money prizes. The drinks would all be CHEAP and the food too. It would be a blue-collar league with white-collar entertainment. They'd ice a roster of 20 players (17 active) and pay them under a 12 Million Dollar hard cap with profit bonuses for the WHAPA, theyd have bi-monthly audits of their books a-la NFL-style, and in a 72 game season theyd only charge 50$ for the most expensive ticket in any arena in the WHA, with a good number 10$ seats in every arena a-la NBA-style. EA Sports' "WHA LIVE 2008" would feature the best game play that their money could buy, allowing up to 10 players at one time with expansion pack, and have the old teams as well as the new ones. Finally, in a perfect dream world, after the NHL has been lockedout for 2 or 3 years, the WHA uses the legal writ from the Freestanley.com folks and wrest control of the Stanley Cup from the league and watch as the Cup trustees now award Lord Stanley's Cup to the winners of the WHA post-season.
How's that for forward thinking?