answers: 1963
context: and attempted union formation, and subsequent actions in the early 1960s by Toronto players Bob Baun and Carl Brewer, leading to the 1967 formation of the NHL Players Association. As more conservative owners left the NHL, a younger guard that was more receptive to expansion came into the league. By 1963, when Rangers governor William M. Jennings first introduced to his peers the idea of expanding the NHL, Major League Baseball and the National Football League were adding teams, while the American Football League was becoming an attractive alternative to the NFL. Jennings proposed that the NHL add two new </s> Association (WHA), which forced the relocation and subsequent folding of the Cleveland Barons, Baltimore Clippers, and Quebec Aces. The number of major-league teams competing for players rose from six to thirty in just seven years. Player salaries at all levels shot up dramatically with the increased demand and competition for their services. This did not seem to affect the AHL at first, as it expanded to 12 teams by 1970. However, to help compensate for the rise in player salaries, many NHL clubs cut back on the number of players they kept under contract for development, and players under AHL </s> decade. Expansion teams, by comparison, were not as dominant during that same time period, which can be partly attributed to expansion teams in general being weaker than existing clubs when first starting out. During those dozen seasons, only one expansion team hoisted the Cup (the Philadelphia Flyers, in 1974 and 1975), and only one Stanley Cup Finals series featured two expansion teams (the Flyers' 1975 win over the Buffalo Sabres). By the early 1980s – after further expansion, a merger with the WHA, and changes in conference/division alignment and playoff structure – expansion teams began reaching clear parity with the
question: when did the nhl expand from 6 teams