1972

 It’s rare that we get to revisit our boyhoods but 1972 by Scott Morrison allowed me to do just that.  Rolling back the clock by 50 years, 1972 recounts the Cold War matchup between Team Canada (really, Team NHL) and the Soviet Union.  Billed as an exhibition series, the event evolved into a battle between the West and the Soviets, played out on a sheet of ice.

1972 was a year of intense competition between East and West.  Three years earlier, the U.S. had overcome an initial deficit in the space race to put a man on the moon ahead of the Soviets.  Earlier that summer, the brash, idiosyncratic Bobby Fisher overcame an in initial two game deficit to best Boris Spassky and dethrone the Soviets in their national pastime—chess.

The series was initially promoted as merely an exhibition series and the promoters had a difficult time at first selling the idea to the N.H.L. players.  1972 was pre-big contracts and many N.H.L. players had off season jobs or ran hockey camps to support their families.  After a bit of haggling, the organizers agreed to pay the players a small cut of the gate, which amounted to only $2-3,000 per player.  In addition, the competing W.H.A. was just getting off the ground and the fledgling league had just signed Bobby Hull to a million dollar contract.   The organizers decided that they would limit players to N.H.L. players, which meant that one of the league’s most prolific goal scorers would be left off.  The other sidelined star was Bobby Orr, who was nursing a knee injury.  Team Canada would be without the two superstar Bobby’s.

Nonetheless, Team Canada was stacked with talent.  At the time, the N.H.L. was a 14 team league. Led by Phil Esposito,  the All-Star team had Yvan Cournoyer, Brad Park, Jean Ratelle, Vic Hadfield, the brothers Pete and Frank Mahovlich, Gary Berman, Dennis Hull, and Gary Bergman  with Hall of Famers Ken Dryden and Tony Esposito in the nets.

The arrogant, yet out of condition Canadiens expected to make short work of the Soviets, who had played together and were in peak condition.

Imagine the shock when the Soviets smoked Team Canada in game 1, 7-3.  The Canadiens won game 2, 4-1 and game 3 ended in a tie, but the Soviets won game 4 and had a 2-1 lead when the series went back to Moscow.  The Canadian fans booed their heroes, causing de facto captain Phil Esposito to give an emotional speech expressing his disappointment in the fans.

Things looked very bleak after the Soviets won game 5 in Moscow to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the series.  With their backs against the wall (just as Bobby Fischer was against Boris Spassky a few weeks earlier), Team Canada began to gel and rallied to win games 6 and 7, for a decisive game 8.

In game 8, Team Canada again had to fight to come from behind as the Soviets took the lead 4 times in the game.  Going into the third period, the Soviets had a two goal lead, 5-3 and the Soviets had informed the Canadiens that if the game was tied that the tiebreaker rules said that the Soviets would win on points (right?).  The tenacious play of Phil Esposito enabled Team Canada to come back and tie the game with less than 10 minutes left with a goal by Yvan Cournoyer.   Tensions boiled over when the goal light failed to go on and a brawl nearly ensued with organizer Alan Eagleson having to be escorted out of the rink.  Recall that just weeks earlier the Olympic officials had made some suspiciously bad calls in the finals between the Soviets and the U.S.  With less than a minute to play, the game looked like it would end up in a tie.  But there was a scramble around the Soviet goal.  Announcer Foster Hewitt made the memorable call:

Henderson made a wild stab for it and fell.  Here’s another shot…right in front.  They score!  HENDERSON HAS SCORED FOR CANADA!

All of Canada went wild.  Just as Bobby Fischer had crawled back from a deficit against Boris Spassky, Team Canada had salvaged its national pride in its native game.

Much has changed in those 50 years.  The game has changed.  The series opened up the league to European players, and later, Russian and Eastern Bloc players.  The  economics of the league have changed.  No player needs to work side jobs to get by.  Some of the changes have undoubtedly been for the better.  Rules changes have made the play faster.   Players are more skilled.   Fights and violence have diminished.  Fighting and violence marred the Summit Series and there is still controversy over Bobby Clarke’s intentional slash of Soviet star player Valerie Kharlamov that broke his ankle. 

Still, the league was smaller.  Teams played each other more frequently, so one could identify more easily with teams and players.  The N.H.L. had 14 teams at the time and now has 32.  

And it is with a bit of sadness that many of the players are gone now.   Tony Esposito.  Pat Stapleton.  Stan Mikita.  Bill White.  Gary Bergman.  Rod Gilbert.  J.P. Parise.  Bill Goldsworthy.

And 50 years later, there is still a lot of anxiety about a nuclear confrontation with Russian.

Some things never change.