Opening salvo

Soviet win in Montreal slap in face to Canadians

By Jim Kernaghan, SLAM! Sports

The Series An exhibition which turned legendary 1972 Summit Series Game Recaps Defining event in Canadian history Russian hockey changed drastically Oppression bred creativity on ice From SI Eliot: A lasting impression Flashback: Still blushing Flashback: Off to Hockeyland Flashback: Narrow victory Features Q&As: Henderson | Tretiak Team Stats: Canada | Soviet Union More stories Canada bodychecked communism Slap in face to Canadians Hopes were dim heading to Moscow Too much garbage with series

Francis (Bunny) Ahearne's words came like a transatlantic slap in the mouth that grim midnight 30 years ago.

"Good God, I couldn't be more delighted," the British president of the International Ice Hockey Federation said over the telephone when awakened from his pre-dawn slumber with the news the Soviet Union's national team had defeated Team Canada in the opening game of their eight-game Summit Series.

"Ho, ho, ho, I didn't visualize anything like this," he guffawed.

It was the verbal equivalent of burning the Canadian flag.

Ahearne might have been ecstatic but Canadians were mortified and worse. This was the cream of National Hockey League professionals who finally, after years of Soviet domination over Canada's best amateurs, were getting a chance to school our ideological and athletic foes on the finer points of our game.

Instead, the 7-3 Soviet win in the Montreal opener would ignite a national spate of emotional contortionism unmatched in this nation before or since. As the series unfolded, the lows reached depths never before encountered outside wartime. The highs were stratospheric, culminating with the epic, never-to-be-forgotten Paul Henderson shot in the final Moscow game that has many Canadians to this day able to clearly recall where, and what, they were doing when he scored the goal that decided it all 30 years ago Saturday.

Across 26 tumultuous September days of 1972, all hockey -- players, coaches, executives and fans -- were joined by Canadians of all stripes in a massive reappraisal of both ourselves and the game we liked to call our own. The pain was made sharper by the realization we'd been victims of our own self-deception.

Some personal recollections:

Guys named Aleksander Ragulin, Valery Kharlamov, Boris Mikhailov and Aleksander Yakushev carefully watched by a stern and mysterious retinue of coaches and trainers/KGB people as they practiced in ratty jerseys, socks and beat-up skates at the Montreal Forum before the opener.

Team Canada's Stan Mikita encountered on a late-night stroll, more worried about the possibility of teammates being in a firebombed Ste. Catherines St. bistro than the coming game.

The fans' hand-rubbing anticipation at Canada's best finally getting a crack at the Commie poseurs as the Forum filled.

Novelist Mordecai Richler slumping lower in his seat just ahead of us as the helmeted Soviets mounted their bewildering high-tempo game to erase bare-headed Team Canada's quick two-goal lead.

After, the eyes of young Bobby Clarke, Canada's player of the game, dazed and uncomprehending as he tried to answer questions he could not answer. Answers would have to come later.

At first blush, we were had. Not so much by the Soviet team but by ourselves, abetted by NHL scouts who told us the guy many Russians consider their athlete of all time, goaltender Vladislav Tretiak, was strictly junior B calibre. (They'd seen him give up nine goals but didn't know he was hung over after his wedding party the night before). The skinny was our pros would easilydominate him and the quick but small Soviet forwards.

After the deluge, tiny fingers of doubt crept in -- those fingers not pointing in all directions as culpability was sought for this unthinkable disaster. Then-NHL president Clarence Campbell (the last major league chief who could be reached at home) was only slightly less inflammatory when I called him right after speaking with Ahearne. Part of the problem was the team selection, he said, laying the blame right at the doorstep of coaches Harry Sinden and John Ferguson. For whatever reason, Campbell zeroed in on defenceman Guy Lapointe.

Some of the accusatory fingers came back Campbell's way for banning Bobby Hull, who'd jumped from the Chicago Blackhawks to the upstart World Hockey Association. Even prime minister Pierre Trudeau's intervention on Hull's behalf didn't change anything. Other WHA defectors, Gerry Cheevers, J.C. Tremblay and Derek Sanderson, were seen as guys who should have been given a shot, too.

There were feelings of betrayal and a rush of second-guessing in boardrooms and bar-rooms of the nation unlike anything Canada had experienced. It was, in context, as though we'd all just learned Vimy Ridge, the St. Lawrence River and Rocky Mountains were myths.

And so the roller-coaster ride began.

After the second game, in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, there were those who felt the opener was only a competitive spasm, an absurd anomaly as two distinct styles of hockey clashed for the first time. Canada's 4-1 victory, punctuated by a brilliant short-handed goal when Peter Mahovlich (the largest Canadian at 210 pounds) skated in alone on Tretiak, was seen by some as reality righting itself. The series outcome would not be the 8-0 of so many predictions but so what? A seven-games-to-one margin would be acceptable.

A couple of sidelight recollections:

The Soviet team reducing a buffet table groaning with the best in meats, fruits and vegetables to scraps in minutes.

A Soviet player, identity unknown, being led by a "trainer" (read KGB) up the Royal York Hotel stairs from the lobby. The "trainer" had his victim in some sort of pinch-hold at the side of his neck.

Despite the Toronto margin, more perceptive Canadian observers would not be gulled again. Having come to appreciate the tremendous individual physical strength of the much smaller Soviets, it was clear they would not be readily pushed around, particularly by a group of guys from a system that considered a month of relatively soft training adequate preparation for full-out hockey. The guys in red with CCCP on their chests were ready for anything and their protestations of surprise at their opening-game success were only half-valid: They were surprised the Canadians were so unprepared.

Game 3 in Winnipeg was a saw-off, a 4-4 result that changed little. Those who thought Team Canada would be turning the series around remained in that mind-set. Those who felt deeply troubled thought worse lay ahead.

And it did, in what could be termed the seminal moment of the whole affair -- Phil Esposito's outraged, mournful, frustrated and thoroughly disgusted post-game televised diatribe against the booing fans of Vancouver after Canada's 5-3 loss.

Sweat pouring down his face and anger flashing from his eyes, the fellow who would eventually turn the whole thing around with the best hockey of his entire life was as devastated as a severely wounded soldier coming out of battle to be met by a stone-throwing mob.

"People across Canada, we tried, we gave it our best," he breathed. "For the people who booed us, geez, I'm really . . . all of us guys are really disheartened and we're disillusioned and we're disappointed in some of the people. We cannot believe the bad press we've got, the booing in our own buildings.

"I cannot believe it. Some of our guys are really, really down in the dumps. We know, we're trying, we're trying, but hell, we're doing the best we can. But they've got a good team and let's face facts. Every one of us guys, 35 guys, we came out because we love our country. Not for any other reason. We came because we love Canada."

A sidelight recollection:

Spotting Soviet defenseman Valery Vasiliev sitting in a Hotel Vancouver cloakroom, cigarette between thumb and forefinger, palm faceward in the Russian manner. I shout "Hey" and he bolts upward off the bench, almost striking his head on a hat-rack. I laugh. He sees he isn't about to get the dreaded KGB claw-hold and laughs himself before sitting down with a couple of mates, sharing the smoke. It occurs to me it's one of the few times he's been caught out of position.

It would take smoke and maybe some mirrors, many felt, during the break before the series resumed in Moscow. Team Canada had been outchanced and often outplayed in trailing two games to one, with one draw, on home ice. What would it be like in the forbidding Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow?

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