the wchl was never particularly stable. a major factor weakening the league's long term prospects for success was the lack of any teams in winnipeg, then by far the largest city in the prairies. due to the city's relatively large size, the league hoped to ice multiple teams in the manitoban capital (similar to how montreal, then the largest city in canada, then hosted both the canadiens and maroons in the nhl). the rationale was both a desire to boost the total number of teams and a fear that a single winnipeg team would dominate the league. however, no potential ownership group was willing to ice a team in winnipeg without being granted the sort of territorial exclusivity that was by then common practice in north american professional sports leagues.