the league started with high hopes in a general climate of optimism that followed the end of the first world war. like another then-fledgling professional league in a different sport (the american professional football association, forerunners to today's national football league) the wchl was centered in smaller cities with populations of under 100,000 people. in an era where professional sport was considered to be a seasonal occupation to be supplemented by off-season work, salaries even at the major professional level were relatively small and thought to be within the means of clubs located in markets as small as saskatoon and moose jaw.