"We are number one in two things: hockey and wheat."
-Team Canada 1972 coach Harry Sinden.
Make that one.
My son and I spoke on the phone last night. We were excited about an upcoming hockey game we and my daughter, his sister, will attend against the Winnipeg "Jets." I had been a fan of the World Hockey Association (WHA), a rebel league, and I have a general fondness for rebels.
I told my son about the importance of the original Winnipeg "Jets;" how their signing of Bobby Hull made the WHA, to the point that the league was known as "When Hull Arrived;" how their signing of so many European players, to the point where they were called the the Winnipeg "Yets," was an innovation that changed a bit the way hockey was played in North America. And I told my son that the European innovation to Canada's Game had been occasioned by the initial "Summit Series," I had not remembered the name, in 1972, which I misremembered as having occurred in 1974, which I remembered correctly was between Canada and the Soviet Union. I told him about the shock of game 1, a 7-3 Soviet win, of "Booby" Clarke breaking Valeri Kharlamov's ankle; of "the greatest moment in Paul Henderson's life," the game and series winner in game 8 in Moscow. "It sounds like their equivalent of the 'Miracle on Ice!,'" my son said. "It was!," I replied incorrectly. My son and I talked hockey for 41 minutes and after we hung up I went home and watched the Summit Series until 1 am. I watched all of game 1 and parts of games 2-5.
I have no memory of watching any of the Summit Series live. Since the first four games were played in American viewer-friendly Canadian time zones I have to think that they were not televised in western Pennsylvania. It was not for lack of interest on my part that I did not watch. Hockey was still a novelty in much of America in 1972; until 1966 there were only six professional teams in all of North America, two of those in Canada and almost all of the players were Canadian. The only specific memories I have of the series are the shock of the game 1 result and seeing Phil Esposito's this-is-a-day-that-will-live-in-infamy television interview post game 4, which I misremembered as post game 1.
I was disgusted by what I saw last night. In interviews appended to the game 1 youtube I watched I heard Esposito say "When I am asked who won the '72 series I say 'Society won,'" that is, Canadian as opposed to Soviet society. I read today Esposito also said years later "I would have killed those son of a bitches to win. It scares me every time I think about it." That is the society that won. The North American hockey cognoscenti had predicted a clean sweep, eight wins for Canadian society, zero win for Soviet society.
Canadian hockey and Soviet hockey had developed in parallel but on mutually exclusive islands. "Canadian arrogance," that is a phrase seldom seen; "Soviet humility:" at least as unseen. Yet, those
are what they were. Canadian hockey experts had seen future Hall of Fame Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak play, and were unimpressed. Ignorance. Arrogance and ignorance. By contrast the Soviet coach said his team was just playing "to learn." Vsevolod Bobrov did allow that Kharlamov was pretty good and would make a good impression on the superior Canadians. Undoubtedly there was some gamesmanship there by Bobrov but one senses that most of it was genuine. In the event Kharlamov did make an impression on the Canadians to the point that assistant coach John Ferguson said "he was killing us" and so in game 6 told Bobby Clarke to go out and break Kharlamov's ankle. Which Clarke did.
My first impression as I began to watch game 1: all of the Soviet players wore helmets; none of the Canadian players save Paul Henderson did. "We're tough!" Stupid, too. When Team Canada scored 30 seconds into game 1 in Montreal it certainly appeared that the North American hockey cognoscenti were correct and as disagreeable as arrogance is in any human being it appeared that Canadian hockey arrogance at least was based in fact. But the flow of the game told a different story even that early on. The Soviets were faster, quicker, better organized, their passing pin-point, often no-look, it was hockey at its funest. The Canadians were slower, ponderous by comparison, disorganized and "passing" in the Canadian fashion of dump-and-chase. Canadian goalie Ken Dryden was clearly unprepared for the quick release and power of the Soviet shots on goal, his body reacting with awkward surprise. Dryden, like all Canadian goaltenders, was used to the dramatic wind-up, send-the-goalie-a-telegram, haymaker, Slap Shots beloved by Canadian forwards and fans alike.
Team Canada's coach, Harry Sinden, could see all of this. In between Canada's first and second goals
(only six minutes later) the television camera briefly panned to Sinden behind the Canadian bench. He was pacing furiously, tie already askew, and gum-chewing just as furiously.
The Soviets tied it by the end of the first period. They scored twice more in the second period, both by the sublime Valeri Kharlamov, making it four unanswered goals, and in the intermission play-by-play announcer Foster Hewitt said the 18,818 in attendance were "shocked." It was also hot in the Montreal Forum, 115 degrees according to one report I read, and it soon became clear that the Soviet players were better conditioned. Their pace never waned while the Canadians grew weary chasing them and frantically diving in front of their shots and their faces dripped sweat and their hair grew disheveled and wet and they breathed through open mouths. It was awful hockey.
The Forum crowd was pretty quiet. When Team Canada scored the first goal of the third period to close the gap to 4-3 I remember the crowd coming alive and getting loud with a presentiment of their Society's emergence from stupor but then...13:32, "They score!", 14:29, "They score!", 18:37, "They score!", and they would have kept scoring but for the Forum's siren sounding the end of the game and in the end the Soviets only scored seven goals. Valeri Kharlamov had two goals, Bobby Clarke only got one penalty for slashing.
Canada won game 2 in Toronto 4-1, played much better, changed strategies and goaltenders and dramatically outshot the Soviets. Bobby Clarke got another penalty for slashing.
Game 3 was in Winnipeg, new home of Bobby Hull. Team Canada was really Team-NHL and Hull, now in the WHA, was not allowed to play in the series. Arrogant. Stupid. Game 3 ended in a 4-4 tie, the Soviets scoring the final two goals of the game, Kharlamov assisting on the fourth. Canada
outshot the Soviets 38-25. Bobby Clarke had no slashing penalties in this game, maybe he wasn't
feeling "up to snuff" or maybe his arms were sore from chopping but Wayne Cashman (2, including a 10-minute misconduct) and Bill White picked up Booby's standard.
By the time Team Canada made its way to Vancouver for game 4, Canadian Society was in a surly mood, embarrassed by the results and Canada's thuggish style of play. The Soviets...ladies and gentleman, Team Soviet Union, were the favorites of the Vancouver crowd. I have read today that the
Vancouver crowd booed Team Canada during the introductions! I did not hear that. I did hear them
boo Canada at the second intermission and during the third period and they were booed off the ice after the game ended! The tape I watched does not have any crowd reaction after the game. The game ends and then the telecast goes to the interview of Phil Esposito in which Esposito calls out the crowd for booing and all the people in Canada who were being critical. "We're trying!", Espo reassured the restless, sweat dripping off his face. It was the shot heard 'round the wheatfields.
They were trying in a manner that tried Vancouver Society. Coach Harry Sinden had attempted to "energize" Team Wheeze by inserting "Bill" "Goldsworthy" into the lineup: Goldsworthy for cross-checking, 1:24, "They score!," 2:01. Goldsworthy for elbowing, 5:58, "They score!," 7:29. Thus having fulfilled his duties Mr. Unworthy was removed from action for awhile is my recollection. However that may be he did return, scoring a goal and, up to his energizing tricks again on another occasion, attempted to board or cross-check, it was an attempt to commit at least two misdemeanors that I saw, a Soviet player but the slippery little commie dodged him and Goldy ended up boarding or cross-checking air and the dasherboards. In that order. That was later in the game, I believe in the third period, and he did get some "raspberries," a "Bronx cheer," from the faithful for that manner of "trying" but by then the boos had already started. The luckless Dryden was keeping goal again and at
one time when the puck moved ever so slowly toward him and he halted its "progress" a faux cheer went up at his "save."
I have read that in this game Vladislav Tretiak became a "darling" of the Canadian crowd. Well he might have for he stopped 38 of Canada's 41 shots, I observed a few beauties, and I did hear applause after several of his saves but I cannot say that the cheering was for Tretiak as opposed to applauding the Canadian marksmen,--They were "trying!"--that also being a typical crowd reaction.
There was one sequence in particular however in which I clearly saw where the crowd's sympathies lay, although the Canadian announcing duo did not. The sequence involved the aforesaid Espo. Phil Esposito was a bear of a man, he was the only player on the ice who looked like a Russian bear. Esposito was a big guy and he skated in a "lumbering" manner as we associate with bear movements and with shoulders hunched a la bears. He was a bear to move out of the goal crease, I can tell you that. He would park his lumbering self there and wait for goodies to be thrown his way and then attempt to deflect or redirect them homeward and he was wildly successful at that. Goalies and
defenders do not like opposing players "crowding their space" and will do most anything to move the
trespasser out of the way, or the crease in this case. But you just could not move Phil. He was too big and too strong and too bear-like.
That was in front of the goal. One might logically think that such a big, strong man would be difficult to move from anywhere but the sequence under review reveals the fallacy in that logic for in this
sequence Phil was behind the goal. Different place! Phil was skating behind his own goal,preparatory to a "rush" up ice and was being shadowed by a Soviet. The Soviet definitely grabbed Phil in a bearhug behind the goal and it is quite possible that their legs became entangled, I could not see clearly for the goal netting, and tha Phil truly was tripped but as the entangled two emerged from behind the goal Phil was already on his way down and with an ease that seemed incommensurate to me with his size, strength, center of gravity, and with the force applied by his light-weight tormentor.
Esposito is a guileless man, he wouldn't do guile well when he tried it and he looked to me, and to the crowd at rail's edge, as if he tried it in this sequence for immediately upon belly-flopping on the ice he raised his head and looked in the direction of the official with a facial expression that spoke to me these words, "Was that good?" It was. The Soviet player was whistled for tripping. The Soviet player, still on the ice with Phil smiled in the direction of the official, raised his hands palm upward in the universal language of "What's a fella to do?" and then good-naturedly tapped Espo on the butt with his glove: "Good job!" The crowd along the boards smiled and applauded and I am sure that that smile and that applause was for the good-natured Soviet, not the victimized Espo.
Those lovable commies won game 4 5-3, a score that misleads as the last Canadian goal was scored with 22 seconds left in the game, one of the periodic lapses in concentration that plagued Vladislav Tretiak's career, on a shot by Dennis Hull, brother of the missing Golden Jet, Bobby.
Thus did these two red armies depart the North American continent. Games 5-8 were played in
Moscow, the Soviet red army leading the series two games to one with one draw.
I have never seen an elite hockey game like game 5. During the player introductions--Name called,
step forward, step backward, Next!--Phil Esposito took his obligatory step forward and fell flat on his bear ass. The Russian crowd laughed of course but Esposito handled himself with an aplomb that won goodwill. Still on the ice, he smiled broadly and made a quite graceful sweep of his arm, ballet-like. With that curious, seemingly inauspicious but perhaps ice-breaking beginning on enemy ice Team Canada led 3-0 after two periods. Amazing.
The slashing was back. Ron Ellis and Kharlamov were issued joint citations in the second period. In the third period the Soviets made it 3-1, Canada upped it to 4-1 a minute an twenty seconds later and then a Russian avalanche smothered the Canadians. A goal at 9:05 made it 4-2; eight seconds later, another made it 4-3; at 11:41 it was tied and three minutes later it was 5-4 Soviets. It was over. Amazing. Bobby Clarke had one goal, two assists and one penalty, Valeri Kharlamov had two assists and two penalties, one for slashing. The Soviets now led the series 3-1-1 with three games left to play, all in Moscow. Impossible.
The story of game 5 however was Canadian Society. 3,000 socialites had trekked to Moscow and throughout the game, including at the heart-sickening end, they had cheered long and loudly for their heroes, louder than did the Soviet citizens who out-numbered them by a 4-1 ratio. The Canadian fans had heard Phil Esposito in Vancouver, they were an inspiration to the team and for the remainder of the series were to "inspire them to valorous deeds." And some not so valorous.
Game 6 was the turning point of the whole shebang. After a scoreless first period the Soviets struck first at 1:12 of the second. Then...a Canadian avalanche: Hull at 5:13, Cournoyer at 6:21, 15 seconds later Paul Henderson and Team Canada was up 3-1! The turning point of the turning point came at 10:12 as Bobby Clarke chased down Valeri Kharlamov in the Canadian zone.
“If Clarke hits him with a bodycheck and knocks him out, that’s fair and square. To go out and deliberately try to take somebody out, there’s no sportsmanship in that. To me, it’s the same as shooting a guy in the hallway. Clarke was probably the only guy on the whole team that would have done it.
“We had a lot of tough guys on that team, but there weren’t many guys who played hockey that way.We had guys who would stand up and look you right in the eye, punch you in the nose if you had a fight, but I don’t think they would bushwhack.
“It’s not something I would subscribe to. That’s not sportsmanship. Hockey is meant to be a tough game, and it’s a physical game, but to go out and deliberately try to take a guy out, I don’t think there’s any place in hockey for that.”
-Paul Henderson, the hero of the series for Team Canada and Clarke's teammate and linemate, in 2002.
Clarke was given a two-minute penalty for slashing and a ten-minute penalty for misconduct. It was Canadian hockey at its goonish worst. Canada's goons were mugging the Soviets the whole game. Esposito was booked for a double-minor for charging in the first period. Guy Lapointe and Valeri Vasiliev had both been sent off for roughing right before Clarke's assault; Dennis Hull, slashing, five minutes later. After the Soviets scored on the ensuing power play Phil Esposito received a major
penalty, high sticking, 44 seconds after Hull's slash, and Team Canada was assessed a bench minor at the same time. Canada's Game, 3-2, Canada's Shame.
Game 7, the Soviets without Valeri Kharlamov, Canada's Game, 4-3, Canada's Shame, more of the same: Esposito, two goals, two penalties, cross-checking, roughing; Peter Mahovlich, roughing; JP Parise, two penalties, slashing, roughing; Rod Gilbert, one goal, two penalties, charging, hooking; Gary Bergman, two penalties, holding and a major for roughing. Series tied 3-3-1.
In the final, series-deciding game, won by Team Canada 6-5 on a wonderful, last-minute goal by Paul Henderson, JP Parise received a 10-minute misconduct penalty--this was Parise's reaction:
JP only threatened to kill the (German) referee and raised his stick as if he would, but he didn't really and for that he got a game misconduct? Kicked out of the game? Yes, he did. In the first period, which ended tied at 2. In the second period, the Soviets outscored the Canadiens 3-1 and Pat Stapleton received a cross-checking penalty. Canada scored three goals in the third period to win the game and the series and Rod Gilbert got a fighting major penalty and Dennis Hull a high-sticking penalty.
Canada did not beat the Soviet Union in hockey in 1972; Canada could not beat the Soviet Union in hockey, they could only win a street fight. Who won the Summit Series in 1972? Phil Esposito said "Society won." They'll always have wheat.
-Team Canada 1972 coach Harry Sinden.
Make that one.
My son and I spoke on the phone last night. We were excited about an upcoming hockey game we and my daughter, his sister, will attend against the Winnipeg "Jets." I had been a fan of the World Hockey Association (WHA), a rebel league, and I have a general fondness for rebels.
I told my son about the importance of the original Winnipeg "Jets;" how their signing of Bobby Hull made the WHA, to the point that the league was known as "When Hull Arrived;" how their signing of so many European players, to the point where they were called the the Winnipeg "Yets," was an innovation that changed a bit the way hockey was played in North America. And I told my son that the European innovation to Canada's Game had been occasioned by the initial "Summit Series," I had not remembered the name, in 1972, which I misremembered as having occurred in 1974, which I remembered correctly was between Canada and the Soviet Union. I told him about the shock of game 1, a 7-3 Soviet win, of "Booby" Clarke breaking Valeri Kharlamov's ankle; of "the greatest moment in Paul Henderson's life," the game and series winner in game 8 in Moscow. "It sounds like their equivalent of the 'Miracle on Ice!,'" my son said. "It was!," I replied incorrectly. My son and I talked hockey for 41 minutes and after we hung up I went home and watched the Summit Series until 1 am. I watched all of game 1 and parts of games 2-5.
I have no memory of watching any of the Summit Series live. Since the first four games were played in American viewer-friendly Canadian time zones I have to think that they were not televised in western Pennsylvania. It was not for lack of interest on my part that I did not watch. Hockey was still a novelty in much of America in 1972; until 1966 there were only six professional teams in all of North America, two of those in Canada and almost all of the players were Canadian. The only specific memories I have of the series are the shock of the game 1 result and seeing Phil Esposito's this-is-a-day-that-will-live-in-infamy television interview post game 4, which I misremembered as post game 1.
I was disgusted by what I saw last night. In interviews appended to the game 1 youtube I watched I heard Esposito say "When I am asked who won the '72 series I say 'Society won,'" that is, Canadian as opposed to Soviet society. I read today Esposito also said years later "I would have killed those son of a bitches to win. It scares me every time I think about it." That is the society that won. The North American hockey cognoscenti had predicted a clean sweep, eight wins for Canadian society, zero win for Soviet society.
Canadian hockey and Soviet hockey had developed in parallel but on mutually exclusive islands. "Canadian arrogance," that is a phrase seldom seen; "Soviet humility:" at least as unseen. Yet, those
are what they were. Canadian hockey experts had seen future Hall of Fame Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak play, and were unimpressed. Ignorance. Arrogance and ignorance. By contrast the Soviet coach said his team was just playing "to learn." Vsevolod Bobrov did allow that Kharlamov was pretty good and would make a good impression on the superior Canadians. Undoubtedly there was some gamesmanship there by Bobrov but one senses that most of it was genuine. In the event Kharlamov did make an impression on the Canadians to the point that assistant coach John Ferguson said "he was killing us" and so in game 6 told Bobby Clarke to go out and break Kharlamov's ankle. Which Clarke did.
My first impression as I began to watch game 1: all of the Soviet players wore helmets; none of the Canadian players save Paul Henderson did. "We're tough!" Stupid, too. When Team Canada scored 30 seconds into game 1 in Montreal it certainly appeared that the North American hockey cognoscenti were correct and as disagreeable as arrogance is in any human being it appeared that Canadian hockey arrogance at least was based in fact. But the flow of the game told a different story even that early on. The Soviets were faster, quicker, better organized, their passing pin-point, often no-look, it was hockey at its funest. The Canadians were slower, ponderous by comparison, disorganized and "passing" in the Canadian fashion of dump-and-chase. Canadian goalie Ken Dryden was clearly unprepared for the quick release and power of the Soviet shots on goal, his body reacting with awkward surprise. Dryden, like all Canadian goaltenders, was used to the dramatic wind-up, send-the-goalie-a-telegram, haymaker, Slap Shots beloved by Canadian forwards and fans alike.
Team Canada's coach, Harry Sinden, could see all of this. In between Canada's first and second goals
(only six minutes later) the television camera briefly panned to Sinden behind the Canadian bench. He was pacing furiously, tie already askew, and gum-chewing just as furiously.
The Soviets tied it by the end of the first period. They scored twice more in the second period, both by the sublime Valeri Kharlamov, making it four unanswered goals, and in the intermission play-by-play announcer Foster Hewitt said the 18,818 in attendance were "shocked." It was also hot in the Montreal Forum, 115 degrees according to one report I read, and it soon became clear that the Soviet players were better conditioned. Their pace never waned while the Canadians grew weary chasing them and frantically diving in front of their shots and their faces dripped sweat and their hair grew disheveled and wet and they breathed through open mouths. It was awful hockey.
The Forum crowd was pretty quiet. When Team Canada scored the first goal of the third period to close the gap to 4-3 I remember the crowd coming alive and getting loud with a presentiment of their Society's emergence from stupor but then...13:32, "They score!", 14:29, "They score!", 18:37, "They score!", and they would have kept scoring but for the Forum's siren sounding the end of the game and in the end the Soviets only scored seven goals. Valeri Kharlamov had two goals, Bobby Clarke only got one penalty for slashing.
Canada won game 2 in Toronto 4-1, played much better, changed strategies and goaltenders and dramatically outshot the Soviets. Bobby Clarke got another penalty for slashing.
Game 3 was in Winnipeg, new home of Bobby Hull. Team Canada was really Team-NHL and Hull, now in the WHA, was not allowed to play in the series. Arrogant. Stupid. Game 3 ended in a 4-4 tie, the Soviets scoring the final two goals of the game, Kharlamov assisting on the fourth. Canada
outshot the Soviets 38-25. Bobby Clarke had no slashing penalties in this game, maybe he wasn't
feeling "up to snuff" or maybe his arms were sore from chopping but Wayne Cashman (2, including a 10-minute misconduct) and Bill White picked up Booby's standard.
By the time Team Canada made its way to Vancouver for game 4, Canadian Society was in a surly mood, embarrassed by the results and Canada's thuggish style of play. The Soviets...ladies and gentleman, Team Soviet Union, were the favorites of the Vancouver crowd. I have read today that the
Vancouver crowd booed Team Canada during the introductions! I did not hear that. I did hear them
boo Canada at the second intermission and during the third period and they were booed off the ice after the game ended! The tape I watched does not have any crowd reaction after the game. The game ends and then the telecast goes to the interview of Phil Esposito in which Esposito calls out the crowd for booing and all the people in Canada who were being critical. "We're trying!", Espo reassured the restless, sweat dripping off his face. It was the shot heard 'round the wheatfields.
They were trying in a manner that tried Vancouver Society. Coach Harry Sinden had attempted to "energize" Team Wheeze by inserting "Bill" "Goldsworthy" into the lineup: Goldsworthy for cross-checking, 1:24, "They score!," 2:01. Goldsworthy for elbowing, 5:58, "They score!," 7:29. Thus having fulfilled his duties Mr. Unworthy was removed from action for awhile is my recollection. However that may be he did return, scoring a goal and, up to his energizing tricks again on another occasion, attempted to board or cross-check, it was an attempt to commit at least two misdemeanors that I saw, a Soviet player but the slippery little commie dodged him and Goldy ended up boarding or cross-checking air and the dasherboards. In that order. That was later in the game, I believe in the third period, and he did get some "raspberries," a "Bronx cheer," from the faithful for that manner of "trying" but by then the boos had already started. The luckless Dryden was keeping goal again and at
one time when the puck moved ever so slowly toward him and he halted its "progress" a faux cheer went up at his "save."
I have read that in this game Vladislav Tretiak became a "darling" of the Canadian crowd. Well he might have for he stopped 38 of Canada's 41 shots, I observed a few beauties, and I did hear applause after several of his saves but I cannot say that the cheering was for Tretiak as opposed to applauding the Canadian marksmen,--They were "trying!"--that also being a typical crowd reaction.
There was one sequence in particular however in which I clearly saw where the crowd's sympathies lay, although the Canadian announcing duo did not. The sequence involved the aforesaid Espo. Phil Esposito was a bear of a man, he was the only player on the ice who looked like a Russian bear. Esposito was a big guy and he skated in a "lumbering" manner as we associate with bear movements and with shoulders hunched a la bears. He was a bear to move out of the goal crease, I can tell you that. He would park his lumbering self there and wait for goodies to be thrown his way and then attempt to deflect or redirect them homeward and he was wildly successful at that. Goalies and
defenders do not like opposing players "crowding their space" and will do most anything to move the
trespasser out of the way, or the crease in this case. But you just could not move Phil. He was too big and too strong and too bear-like.
That was in front of the goal. One might logically think that such a big, strong man would be difficult to move from anywhere but the sequence under review reveals the fallacy in that logic for in this
sequence Phil was behind the goal. Different place! Phil was skating behind his own goal,preparatory to a "rush" up ice and was being shadowed by a Soviet. The Soviet definitely grabbed Phil in a bearhug behind the goal and it is quite possible that their legs became entangled, I could not see clearly for the goal netting, and tha Phil truly was tripped but as the entangled two emerged from behind the goal Phil was already on his way down and with an ease that seemed incommensurate to me with his size, strength, center of gravity, and with the force applied by his light-weight tormentor.
Esposito is a guileless man, he wouldn't do guile well when he tried it and he looked to me, and to the crowd at rail's edge, as if he tried it in this sequence for immediately upon belly-flopping on the ice he raised his head and looked in the direction of the official with a facial expression that spoke to me these words, "Was that good?" It was. The Soviet player was whistled for tripping. The Soviet player, still on the ice with Phil smiled in the direction of the official, raised his hands palm upward in the universal language of "What's a fella to do?" and then good-naturedly tapped Espo on the butt with his glove: "Good job!" The crowd along the boards smiled and applauded and I am sure that that smile and that applause was for the good-natured Soviet, not the victimized Espo.
Those lovable commies won game 4 5-3, a score that misleads as the last Canadian goal was scored with 22 seconds left in the game, one of the periodic lapses in concentration that plagued Vladislav Tretiak's career, on a shot by Dennis Hull, brother of the missing Golden Jet, Bobby.
Thus did these two red armies depart the North American continent. Games 5-8 were played in
Moscow, the Soviet red army leading the series two games to one with one draw.
I have never seen an elite hockey game like game 5. During the player introductions--Name called,
step forward, step backward, Next!--Phil Esposito took his obligatory step forward and fell flat on his bear ass. The Russian crowd laughed of course but Esposito handled himself with an aplomb that won goodwill. Still on the ice, he smiled broadly and made a quite graceful sweep of his arm, ballet-like. With that curious, seemingly inauspicious but perhaps ice-breaking beginning on enemy ice Team Canada led 3-0 after two periods. Amazing.
The slashing was back. Ron Ellis and Kharlamov were issued joint citations in the second period. In the third period the Soviets made it 3-1, Canada upped it to 4-1 a minute an twenty seconds later and then a Russian avalanche smothered the Canadians. A goal at 9:05 made it 4-2; eight seconds later, another made it 4-3; at 11:41 it was tied and three minutes later it was 5-4 Soviets. It was over. Amazing. Bobby Clarke had one goal, two assists and one penalty, Valeri Kharlamov had two assists and two penalties, one for slashing. The Soviets now led the series 3-1-1 with three games left to play, all in Moscow. Impossible.
The story of game 5 however was Canadian Society. 3,000 socialites had trekked to Moscow and throughout the game, including at the heart-sickening end, they had cheered long and loudly for their heroes, louder than did the Soviet citizens who out-numbered them by a 4-1 ratio. The Canadian fans had heard Phil Esposito in Vancouver, they were an inspiration to the team and for the remainder of the series were to "inspire them to valorous deeds." And some not so valorous.
Game 6 was the turning point of the whole shebang. After a scoreless first period the Soviets struck first at 1:12 of the second. Then...a Canadian avalanche: Hull at 5:13, Cournoyer at 6:21, 15 seconds later Paul Henderson and Team Canada was up 3-1! The turning point of the turning point came at 10:12 as Bobby Clarke chased down Valeri Kharlamov in the Canadian zone.
It was a deliberate, premeditated--assistant coach John Ferguson had just meditated it--cowardly attack from behind on the Soviet Union's best player, a vicious two-handed chop on Kharlamov's left ankle, an attempt to injure an opposing player and an attempt that was successful, it broke Valeri Kharlamov's ankle, knocking him out of the game and of game 7. It was:
“the low point of the series.”“If Clarke hits him with a bodycheck and knocks him out, that’s fair and square. To go out and deliberately try to take somebody out, there’s no sportsmanship in that. To me, it’s the same as shooting a guy in the hallway. Clarke was probably the only guy on the whole team that would have done it.
“We had a lot of tough guys on that team, but there weren’t many guys who played hockey that way.We had guys who would stand up and look you right in the eye, punch you in the nose if you had a fight, but I don’t think they would bushwhack.
“It’s not something I would subscribe to. That’s not sportsmanship. Hockey is meant to be a tough game, and it’s a physical game, but to go out and deliberately try to take a guy out, I don’t think there’s any place in hockey for that.”
-Paul Henderson, the hero of the series for Team Canada and Clarke's teammate and linemate, in 2002.
Clarke was given a two-minute penalty for slashing and a ten-minute penalty for misconduct. It was Canadian hockey at its goonish worst. Canada's goons were mugging the Soviets the whole game. Esposito was booked for a double-minor for charging in the first period. Guy Lapointe and Valeri Vasiliev had both been sent off for roughing right before Clarke's assault; Dennis Hull, slashing, five minutes later. After the Soviets scored on the ensuing power play Phil Esposito received a major
penalty, high sticking, 44 seconds after Hull's slash, and Team Canada was assessed a bench minor at the same time. Canada's Game, 3-2, Canada's Shame.
Game 7, the Soviets without Valeri Kharlamov, Canada's Game, 4-3, Canada's Shame, more of the same: Esposito, two goals, two penalties, cross-checking, roughing; Peter Mahovlich, roughing; JP Parise, two penalties, slashing, roughing; Rod Gilbert, one goal, two penalties, charging, hooking; Gary Bergman, two penalties, holding and a major for roughing. Series tied 3-3-1.
In the final, series-deciding game, won by Team Canada 6-5 on a wonderful, last-minute goal by Paul Henderson, JP Parise received a 10-minute misconduct penalty--this was Parise's reaction:
JP only threatened to kill the (German) referee and raised his stick as if he would, but he didn't really and for that he got a game misconduct? Kicked out of the game? Yes, he did. In the first period, which ended tied at 2. In the second period, the Soviets outscored the Canadiens 3-1 and Pat Stapleton received a cross-checking penalty. Canada scored three goals in the third period to win the game and the series and Rod Gilbert got a fighting major penalty and Dennis Hull a high-sticking penalty.
Canada did not beat the Soviet Union in hockey in 1972; Canada could not beat the Soviet Union in hockey, they could only win a street fight. Who won the Summit Series in 1972? Phil Esposito said "Society won." They'll always have wheat.
