Rick Dudley never wanted to leave that special Sabres group. He was loving life in Buffalo and living a dream that felt unreachable just a few years earlier. But the money – 10 times what he was earning in the NHL – and the security it offered him became too much to turn down. He couldn’t say no.
So early in what he called a “magical” 1974-75 season, Dudley agreed to a five-year, no-trade, no-cut contract – “Something that was unheard of at the time,” he told the Times Herald – with the Cincinnati Stingers, a team that would be joining the rival World Hockey Association in 1975.
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