*1547. Холодная война на льду

[Николай Озеров]

[Николай Озеров]

[Николай Озеров]

https://www.nhl.com/news/1972-summit...ockey/c-640724
by John Kreiser / NHL.com
September 1st, 2012

Forty years ago Sunday, the hockey world was fundamentally changed by the start of an eight-game series between national teams from Canada, loaded with NHL players in their prime, and the Soviet Union -- considered the two best hockey-playing nations in the world at the time -- that played out across the month of September. The series was a must-follow for hockey fans across the globe and after its dramatic conclusion --- a 4-3-1 series win for the Canadians -- there was no question that the NHL would never be the same again. This month, NHL.com looks at the historic Summit Series with a month-long collection of content. Today, NHL.com provides an overview of what the series meant from some of those who helped make the history happen. Stay tuned for additional comment throughout September.

Has it really been 40 years?

The first weekend of September 1972 was marked by the start of the greatest hockey series ever staged. It's become known as the Summit Series, though four decades ago it was simply called the Canada-U.S.S.R. series – an eight-game showdown between hockey’s two superpowers.

ANNIVERSARY OF 1972 SUMMIT SERIES

Forty years have passed since Canada and the Soviet Union met in a landmark eight-game series that changed hockey forever, and the effects are still evident in the sport all these years later. NHL.com now turns back the clock to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Summit Series.

Sunday, Sept. 2: Game 1 recap
Tuesday, Sept. 4: Game 2 recap
Thursday, Sept. 6: Game 3 recap
Saturday, Sept. 8: Game 4 recap
Saturday, Sept. 22: Game 5 recap
Monday, Sept. 24: Game 6 recap
Wednesday, Sept. 26: Game 7 recap
Friday, Sept. 28: Game 8 recap

On Sept. 2, 1972, Team Canada – basically the best of the National Hockey League minus Bobby Hull, who had signed with the fledgling World Hockey Association and was deemed ineligible to play, and injured superstar Bobby Orr – began a long-awaited series against the Soviet Union's national team, which was the best "amateur" team of the time. This was an era when professional players were ineligible for the Olympics; the Soviet players ostensibly held jobs (many were in the military), but their real occupation was "hockey player."

The NHL was not the 30-team, coast-to-coast enterprise we know today. There were 14 teams -- only three in Canada and just two (Vancouver and Los Angeles) west of St. Louis, which was also the southernmost franchise except for L.A. With the exception of a small sprinkling of Americans, it was a league of Canadians that was sure it played the best hockey in the world.

The Soviets were a mystery. They had won the prior three Olympic gold medals after being upset by the United States at Squaw Valley in 1960, but Canada had to use amateurs -- and for the 1972 Games, the Canadians didn’t even bother sending a team because of a dispute with the International Ice Hockey Federation. Canadian fans felt that had their country been able to send its best players, the result would have been a lot different.

Scouting back then was nowhere near as developed as it is now, and none of the Canadian players had seen much of the Soviets.

"We didn't know anything about them," Hall of Fame member Rod Gilbert told NHL.com. "We had no idea how good they were."

After negotiations that involved Canadian diplomats and Soviet newspaper editors, among others, the series was set for September 1972, prior to the start of the new NHL season. The format was simple – eight games, four in each country, to see which nation really had the best hockey.

Seeing Russians in the NHL is something we take for granted today -- many have been among the League’s best players in the two decades since the end of the Iron Curtain. But this was 1972; the series would be played at the height of the Cold War and provoked intense feelings of nationalism among fans on both sides.

"There was great pressure on us," Gilbert said. "We couldn't lose this series. It was the most incredible pressure I've ever been under."

Still, Canadian fans were certain that the best of the NHL would make short work of the Soviets; in a pre-tournament poll of Canadian journalists by The Hockey News, not one expected the Soviets to win even one game -- though some others, who had seen the Soviets in person, warned that they would arrive in top shape and could well win not only a game or two but the series.

"Both teams won in 1972. It was a great series for all of hockey. The best that Russia had and the best of the NHL. The winner was the game of hockey."
-- Vladislav Tretiak, president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation

"We didn't take them seriously," said forward Paul Henderson, who went on to be the hero of the series. "We knew they were good hockey players. But the lineup we had -- how could we ever lose?"

They got a quick answer when the Soviets overcame an early 2-0 deficit to win the first game 7-3 in Montreal. The Soviets were 3-1-1 before Team Canada rallied to win the final three games in Moscow, capturing the series when Henderson's last-minute goal gave the Canadians a 6-5 victory in the eighth and final game on Sept 28. Henderson’s goal set off celebrations all over Canada, which less than a month earlier was certain its heroes were headed for an eight-game sweep.

The series, and especially Henderson's third winner in as many games, became a landmark cultural event in Canadian history and a huge source of national pride. But it also showed that the Soviets' "amateurs" were just as good as the NHL’s professionals, something they proved numerous times before the walls between pros and amateurs came tumbling down along with the Iron Curtain.

But the biggest consequence of the series was what Soviet star Boris Mikhailov called "a meeting between two schools of hockey." The fruits of that meeting, and the changes it engendered in the sport, are still felt today.

"Both teams won in 1972," Vladislav Tretiak, now the president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, told TSN this summer. "It was a great series for all of hockey. The best that Russia had and the best of the NHL. The winner was the game of hockey."

[Николай Озеров]

Paul Henderson (with helmet) and Bobby Clarke of Team Canada celebrate Henderson's series-winning goal in Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union at the Luzhniki Ice Palace in Moscow, Soviet Union, on Sept. 28, 1972. Denis Brodeur / Getty Images

[Николай Озеров]

Paul Henderson and Bobby Clarke (left) of Team Canada celebrate Henderson's series-winning goal in Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the ...

[Николай Озеров]

https://www.nhl.com/news/game-3-tie-...inted/c-640935
by John Kreiser / NHL.com
September 6th, 2012

Forty years ago, the hockey world was fundamentally changed by the start of an eight-game series between national teams from Canada, loaded with NHL players in their prime, and the Soviet Union -- considered the two best hockey-playing nations in the world at the time -- that played out across the month of September. The series was a must-follow for hockey fans across the globe and after its dramatic conclusion --- a 4-3-1 series win for the Canadians -- there was no question that the NHL would never be the same again. This month, NHL.com looks at the historic Summit Series with a month-long collection of content. Today, NHL.com provides a look back at Game 3 of the series from some of those who helped make the history happen. Stay tuned for additional content throughout September (Game 1 recap, Game 2 recap).

Though the Summit Series matched the best players in the NHL against the Soviet Union, Bobby Hull was a spectator throughout. Hull, who undoubtedly would have made the Canadian team, signed with the brand-new World Hockey Association during the summer and was left off the roster.

Ironically, Game 3 of the series was played in Winnipeg, where Hull would play throughout the WHA's seven seasons. He and the rest of the 9,800 fans who packed Winnipeg Arena on the night of Sept. 6, 1972, had to wonder which Team Canada they would see -- the one that was shelled in Montreal or the one that dominated Game 2 in Toronto.

GAME 3: CANADA 4, SOVIET UNION 4

Team Canada was left frustrated and stalemated in Game 3 of the 1972 Summit Series after the Soviet Union twice overcame two-goal deficits to leave with a 4-4 tie.

First Period: 1, Canada, Parise 1 (White, P. Esposito) 1:54. 2, USSR Petrov 2, 3:16 (sh). 3, Canada, Ratelle 1 (Cournoyer, Bergman), 18:25.

[Николай Озеров]

1972 marked the height of the Cold War and tensions spilled into sporting competitions. On August 31 of that year, Bobby Fisher became the first American born in the United States to win the World Chess Championship, beating the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky as the world watched and ending 24 years of Soviet domination. Ten days later, the U.S Men’s basketball team came into the final game of the Summer Olympic tournament against the Soviet Union having won the previous seven gold medals and putting up an overall Olympic record of 63-0 before losing the most controversial game in Olympic history, 51-50. Hockey Canada and the Soviet Hockey Federation met in April of 1972 during the IIHF World Championships to discuss a series, to be held under international rules, that would pit a Canadian team comprised of professional players against the Soviet national team in an eight game series to be played in September. The two sides agreed on the terms: four games in Canada, using IIHF amateur referees and four games in Moscow, using European referees. Team Canada selected former Boston Bruins’ coach Harry Sinden as head coach and former player John Ferguson as assistant. The event was to be called the Canada-U.S.S.R Series and would commence on September 2 at the Montreal Forum. The Canadian team was made up of NHL All-Stars, including co-captains Phil Esposito, Frank Mahovlich, Stan Mikita and Jean Ratelle. Team Canada was heavily favored and went into the series expecting to win handily. Harry Sinden said, “Canada is first in the world in two things: hockey and wheat” while NHL players’ union director Alan Eagleson stated, “ We gotta win eight games…anything else than an unblemished sweep of the Russians would bring shame down on the heads of the players and the national pride.” The Soviets claimed they were in the series to learn.

[Николай Озеров]

Phil Esposito (7) in action in Game 4 in Vancouver at the Pacific Coliseum of the 1972 Summit Series between the Soviet and Canadian national hockey teams.

[Николай Озеров]

1972 Team Canada: While younger readers may better associate themselves with the 2010 or 2002 Olympic gold-medal teams, or even the Wayne Gretzky-led Canada Cup champions of 1987, the ’72 squad is the granddaddy of them all. Paul Henderson’s Summit Series-clinching goal not only struck a blow for Canadian hockey against the might of the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, but for all of Canada. Even now, 38 years later, it remains a huge source of national pride, as witnessed by the $1.275-million that Henderson’s sweater fetched at auction last month. Paul Attfield
(Peter Bregg/Peter Bregg/The Canadian Press)

[Николай Озеров]

http://www.greatesthockeylegends.com...1_archive.html

While Paul Henderson has been forever immortalized for his series winning heroics, Phil Esposito's effort in the tournament was equally as memorable. In fact, almost every member of Team Canada would be quick to point out that Espo - their undisputed leader - was the real hero of the series.

Right from the get-go, Phil was the leader of this team. He had a commanding stature and he oozed charisma. Players were quick to literally follow him in training camp and away from the rink. When his team struggled out of the gate, he fired them up, and wouldn't accept losing as an option. In fact, he never once felt Canada would lose, not even after falling behind 3-1-1 after the first game in Russia.

No one was more intense than Espo. In the ceremonial puck drop before game one, he vigorously won the usually friendly draw. Then just 30 seconds into the game he scored and celebrated emphatically.

The Russians soon proved that they would be no pushover, and in fact dominated the rest of game one, winning easily in Canada's cathedral of hockey - the Montreal Forum.

The humiliating defeat in game one seemed easy to take compared to the game 4 loss. In the final game played in Canada, Vancouver fans loudly booed Team Canada off of the ice. That would be Team Canada's lingering reminder of their lack of success as they headed to Russia.

But Espo would have none of that. He went on national television following the game and, with his heart and the Maple Leaf on his sleeve, he spoke his mind.

"To the people across Canada, we tried. We gave it our best. To the people who booed us, geez, all of us guys are really disheartened. We're disillusioned and disappointed. We cannot believe the bad press we've got, the booing we've got in our own building.

"I'm completely disappointed. I cannot believe it. 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," he ranted off the top of his head.

Team Canada rallied around perhaps the most famous speech in Canadian history (yes, perhaps even more important than any political speech ever offered).

In fact, it was until after the speech Phil himself realized the battle Team Canada was in - a battle he termed "a war." As he left the post game 4 interview a heckler in the crowd continued to shout insults at him.

"I was so mad I felt like ramming my stick right down his throat," said Espo. "That's when I realized we were in a war, man. This isn't a game. This is a war and we'd better get ourselves together."

Team Canada headed to Russia, and Russian fans were quickly introduced to the charisma of Esposito. During the player introductions Phil stepped on a stem of a rose that was handed out to the players moments earlier. The big Italian fell flat on his butt. The arena erupted in laughter which turned into cheers as Espo got up and blew a kiss into the crowd and took a bow. Phil insists he was directing the kiss towards Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev, and that Brezhnev was not impressed.

Canada unthinkably blew a three goal lead in that first game in Moscow. That forced them to win all the remaining games. Thanks to Esposito's leadership and incredible play and Henderson's timely goal scoring, Canada was able to save face and win the tournament.

Espo led the tournament and scoring and tied for the goal scoring lead. He was as charismatic as the Soviets were stone-faced, which was symbolic of the sharp differences in the two societies. He played the tournament as is if he was possessed. He scored 30 seconds into the first game, and assisted on Paul Henderson's "goal heard around the world" with just 34 seconds left in game 8. Twice he was named the MVP of a game, and was instrumental in the game 8 victory, scoring twice and assisting on two others.

Paul Henderson as said that seemingly everyday of his life someone thanks him for scoring the dramatic goal in Moscow. Thank you too, Phil Esposito.