steveo
09-30-2002, 12:49 AM
This weekend marked the 30th anniversary of the Summit Series. For those of you unaware of what this is, this is when Canada put together a collection of their best professional hockey players and took on the Soviet Red Army in a eight game series in 1972. We pretty much figured we would roll over these ragtag Russian players but they took us to task and put us behind the eight ball early in the series. The Soviet's were faster, stronger, better.
Being down and booed by fans, the team headed to Moscow for the last four games. It became very realistic that Canada could lose the series and the team would return in shame, forever shattering the illusion that Canada produced the best hockey players in the world.
It was war as the players would later state...democracy against communisn...us against them. It became our own personal cold war. The Soviets put us in the worst hotels, served the worst food, used the most biased officials, they wanted to break us, humiliate us, beat us.
We all watched back home. Every pub, cafe or establishment that could find a TV played the four games. In school, all classes were suspened as TV's were wheeled in and we watched. It became clear this was far beyond a game, it was galvanizing a country.
After losing game five in Moscow, Canada seemed in dire straits. It's been said the greatest quality a hockey player can have is heart. Now we would test their heart, to see if they were willing to win the battles in the corners, in front of the net. Would they sacrifice everything to win? After winning games six and seven, Paul Henderson scored at the 19:26 mark of the third period of game eight putting Canada in the lead. The Soviet goal judge refused to turn the goal light on. Pandemonium erupted benind the Canadian bench, the Trudeau salute was given in earnest. Back home it didn't matter, we already knew. We won the war of 1972.
Being down and booed by fans, the team headed to Moscow for the last four games. It became very realistic that Canada could lose the series and the team would return in shame, forever shattering the illusion that Canada produced the best hockey players in the world.
It was war as the players would later state...democracy against communisn...us against them. It became our own personal cold war. The Soviets put us in the worst hotels, served the worst food, used the most biased officials, they wanted to break us, humiliate us, beat us.
We all watched back home. Every pub, cafe or establishment that could find a TV played the four games. In school, all classes were suspened as TV's were wheeled in and we watched. It became clear this was far beyond a game, it was galvanizing a country.
After losing game five in Moscow, Canada seemed in dire straits. It's been said the greatest quality a hockey player can have is heart. Now we would test their heart, to see if they were willing to win the battles in the corners, in front of the net. Would they sacrifice everything to win? After winning games six and seven, Paul Henderson scored at the 19:26 mark of the third period of game eight putting Canada in the lead. The Soviet goal judge refused to turn the goal light on. Pandemonium erupted benind the Canadian bench, the Trudeau salute was given in earnest. Back home it didn't matter, we already knew. We won the war of 1972.