How Hockey Explains Canada by Paul Henderson

Author:Paul Henderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tony Esposito tended goal for the Chicago Blackhawks for 14 seasons. A key member of the 1972 Summit Series team, Esposito played in goal in four of the eight Series games, winning Games 2 and 7.

Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images

“They were drinking and womanizing and to them it was just a laugh,” said former Hockey Night in Canada producer Ralph Mellanby, who was a consulting producer for television coverage of the Summit Series. “They thought we’re going to kill these guys, but the scouting reports were bad, the players were misled. And they didn’t have any goaltending…” The final score of Game 1 was a devastating 7–2 in favour of the Soviets.

“We had never seen that,” said Mellanby. “We didn’t realize that they had invented a new way of playing hockey. We had never seen that before that first game. In our day, you picked up your man. I remember Esposito walking up to me after Game 5. He said, ‘Where does Alexander Yakushev play? He lines up at centre then I can’t find him. I’m trying to find him to check him.’ That wasn’t the way [the Canadians] played. They played in zones. I said, ‘He goes wherever he wants. It’s like soccer.’ Once our coaches got on to that—and I give John Ferguson even more credit than Harry for that—once we learned how to break down their system, the coaching won it for us.”

Coach Sinden and his staff had done their best to purge the team of such overconfidence. “They called Game 1 a wakeup call,” Sinden said. “I’ll be honest with you. I was awake all the time. I think the rest of them were sleeping. They were cocky, although they were careful not to let it show too much, publicly or otherwise. But it was definitely there.” Sinden knew that between 1960 and 1972 a different group of people had taken over the international hockey program and their influence had resulted in changes that continued to evolve over the next 10 years. “It was now more of a gentleman’s approach to the contest for Canada,” said Sinden, who saw a connection between this evolution in style of play and Canada’s dearth of championships.

“I tried to impress upon them that intimidation would not be a factor against the Soviets in this series,” Sinden added. “Those tactics weren’t going to win in ’72. I was convinced of that. We were going to have to match them in ability and skill. And it wasn’t long—one game to be exact—before our team realized that. We did change. The Soviets were now expecting us to be pretty rugged because it was a professional team they were going to play, not the Canadian National Team. I knew how skillful these players were. And I knew from ’58 and little bit from ’60, they were on the same level—they improved a lot in the 10 years. They were on the same level as the NHL players.”

With few exceptions, the Canadian players came to the series out of shape, flabby from a summer of inactivity and too many sports banquets.

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