Perhaps the quintessential Ben Hatskin story was told in the pages of Winnipeg Jets Magazine, in 1973.

The publication described a teenaged Hatskin as someone who eschewed his parents' desire for him to pursue arts and culture in favour of the pursuit of something he could put in his pocket and spend when he wanted to.

Here's a paragraph:

No amount of parental persuasion could force him to take lessons on the violin and mandolin. Looking back Ben says "can you imagine a baby hippopotamus playing the fiddle. After all I weighed about 185 pounds on a 5'8" frame." Close friends of Ben's claim he told his father "the music I love to hear is played on a cash register."

The north-end product of Russian Jewish immigrants sang that tune all the way to Portage and Main, where in 1972 he put his hometown on the hockey map forever, with the bold and equally absurd signing of NHL superstar Bobby Hull to an upstart league called the WHA, and an upstart team called the Jets.

"The best way I can describe him is successful," original Jet Duke Asmundson, who not only played for Hatskin but often played with him, on the golf course, said. "I remember Benny saying to me when the Jets did well, everybody was knocking on his door for more money. ... But when we missed the playoffs nobody was knocking on my door to give it back.' I always think of that."

If cash sang lead, then sports provided the harmony for Hatskin.

A former football player who attended Oklahoma State and helped the Blue Bombers win Grey Cup titles in 1939 and '41, Hatskin had owned a junior hockey team, the Winnipeg Jets of the old Western Canadian Hockey League, since '66.

By 1970, he had enough jangle in his jeans — thanks to the family box business and a myriad of personal ventures, from a thoroughbred stable to a juke box distributorship — to hit the big leagues.

At least he thought he did.

"I talked to (NHL president) Clarence Campbell about getting into the NHL before the second expansion," Hatskin told Winnipeg Jets Magazine. "He called me back and said we'd need a rink seating a guaranteed 16,000 and $7.2 million entry fee."

Hatskin harrumphed at that, and when the idea of a rival league came up, he dove in — and quickly took over.

"I figured it was maybe the only chance our city would ever have to go major league in any sport," Hatskin said.

Somehow he convinced his fellow WHA owners to help lure Hull away from the Chicago Blackhawks, getting them to contribute to the $1 million signing bonus that finally got Hull's attention.

"I felt we'd get a good percentage of NHL players," Hatskin explained. "But getting a superstar like Hull would mean instant-league in the minds of the public and the news media. Also it would cause other players to take the WHA seriously.

"There are only 3 or 4 superstars in hockey. All but Hull were tied up. He was our trump card."

Asmundson says the two mavericks were the perfect pair.

"He had two sides to him," the former player said of Hatskin. "Depending on where you knew him from. He had lots of friends away from business, just ordinary guys, roughhouse guys. Bobby Hull was like that, too. He liked to roll around in the shit."

But they both came up smelling like a rose, the WHA not only surviving that first year but becoming a living, breathing pain in the NHL ass, luring all kinds of big names from the established league.

"The WHA became a reality and its success became more important with each passing day," Hatskin said in that 1973 article. "After all we got in deeper and deeper and besides we had something to prove to the disbelievers who were by far in the majority."

Hatskin would eventually see his league grow up enough to merge with the former enemy, in 1979.

He was out of the ownership game by then, and died in 1990.

But with the Jets more popular than ever in this town, it's time for a tip-of-the-cap to the man who started it all, 40 years ago.

Every Winnipeg hockey fan owes a debt to the kid from the north end. Current owners Mark Chipman and David Thomson, too.

No doubt Hatskin wouldn't have it any other way.

paul.friesen@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @friesensunmedia