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The Racers' demise came under the stewardship of [[Nelson Skalbania]], a flamboyant Canadian real estate businessman. Skalbania, who regularly [[Flipping|flipped]] real estate property and sports franchises for a profit, was repeatedly accused of mismanaging the promising Indianapolis hockey market and plotting to move the franchise to Canada, where it would presumably have had a much better chance of being included in an eventual [[WHA-NHL merger|merger]] the WHA was negotiating with the NHL. Having taken the firm position that no surviving Canadian WHA teams would be excluded from a merger, and knowing the NHL was only willing to even consider taking in a small number of WHA teams, the WHA was not willing to risk upsetting delicate merger negotiations and rebuffed all proposals to add more teams in Canada.
Unable to move his team, Skalbania looked elsewhere to gain leverage in the ongoing merger discussions. He turned to underage players - the NHL had stringent rules regarding the age of players they could sign while the WHA regularly signed underage players. Skalbania's best-known signing was that of 17-year-old future
The other six WHA teams finished the season, and before the [[Winnipeg Jets (1972–96)|Winnipeg Jets]] won the 1979 [[Avco World Trophy]], the league accepted the terms of a merger with the NHL whereby Edmonton, [[Winnipeg Jets (1972–96)|Winnipeg]], [[Quebec Nordiques|Quebec]] and [[Hartford Whalers|New England]] would enter the NHL as "expansion teams" the following season, and the WHA itself would cease operations. [[Cincinnati Stingers|Cincinnati]] and [[Birmingham Bulls (WHA)|Birmingham]], the other surviving WHA teams, were paid to disband.
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