Why I'm so ambivalent about the 1972 Summit Series
Things are always much better in our memories than they are in reality and the 1972 series between Canada and the Soviets is no exception. But there is no doubt that something special happened
A couple of years ago, I sat my then-teenaged son down to watch what I had kept telling him was one of the greatest games ever played, Game 3 of the 1987 Canada Cup final between Canada and the Soviets. It was the third of three 6-5 thrillers, the first two of which had gone into overtime. It was Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux at the apex of their talents against one of the most dominant five-man units in the world, each one of whom would go on to play in the NHL. It was also the last time the Soviets were dominant in best-on-best play, just before their country and hockey system became fractured and less powerful.
I remember thinking that, with the exception of the 2010 Olympics, the 1987 Canada Cup was the highest level at which the game had ever been played. I couldn’t decide whether Canada’s 6-5 double overtime victory in Game 2 or its 6-5 win in Game 3, highlighted by the Gretzky-to-Lemieux classic goal with 1:26 remaining in the third period, was the better game. But I was adamant that this was the ultimate in hockey artistry on so many levels. Neither of us said much as we watched the game, but about halfway through, my son turned to me and said, “No offence, Dad, but this kinda sucks.”
And he was absolutely right. The game I remembered as one of the greatest ever was slow and turgid and essentially conducted under prison rules with countless holds, hooks and slashes. “The referees didn’t call anything,” Paul Coffey recalled when I recently spoke to him about it. That’s the risk you run when your memory carries one conception and modern reality carries another. Those games did not age well. Not well at all.
So as we all celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Summit Series, which kicked off 50 years ago tonight with Canada’s shocking 7-3 loss to the Soviets at the Montreal Forum, I have a little pro tip for you. If you cherish the memories of the eight games between the two teams over 27 days, by all means do not rewatch them. Preserve them in your memory the way they were then. Because your 2022 eyes won’t believe how bad the hockey actually was.
Truth be told, I’ve always thought the Summit Series was overblown and overrated. In fact, it seemed a little pathetic to me that Canadians continued to cling to its memory so ardently. And it is definitely not because of my age. The eight-year-old me was glued to the television set just as were 16 million of the 22 million sets of eyeballs in Canada for Game 8 of the series. I recall watching the first period at home, where I had gone for lunch, and not believing my eyes that Jean-Paul Parise had almost taken referee Josef Kompalla’s head off. As we sat cheek-to-jowl in Miss Delice’s Grade 5 class at Sacred Heart School in Sudbury, we rejoiced in Canada’s comeback and knew that we had watched something special. This thing was right in my wheelhouse.
So why don’t I share the same passion for the Summit Series that so many people my age do? Not sure, but I do believe Canada has had a difficult time moving on from it. I remember Vladislav Tretiak as being brilliant in the first half the series and dreadful in the second half. I thought Bobby Clarke breaking Valery Kharlamov’s ankle was abhorrent. I’m a part of the contingent that believes Paul Henderson does not belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame for having a good week, unless you want to start talking about inducting people like Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig (for the 1980 Miracle on Ice), Frantisek Pospisil and Jiri Holecek (for their heroics in the 1972 World Championship, where the Czechoslovaks defeated the powerhouse Soviets, four years after the Soviet tanks rolled into their country) and Robert Reichel (for his shootout goal for the Czechs against Canada in the semifinal of the 1998 Olympics). I definitely have a hard time reconciling all the bad Alan Eagleson did to the players he was supposed to protect with what he did for international hockey by organizing that series. I’ve often referred to 1972 as, “a meaningless exhibition series,” which is definitely way too harsh. I’m going to stop doing that.
Because 1972 was special. Plenty special. And that hit home recently when I spoke for 90 minutes on the phone about it with Ken Dryden, who recently wrote a book about the series titled, The Series: What I Remember, What It Felt Like, What It Feels Like Now. Because here was a guy who won everything there was to win in the game, including six Stanley Cups, five Vezina Trophies, a Calder Trophy and a Conn Smythe Trophy. He lost just 57 games over seven-plus seasons with one of the greatest dynasties the game has ever seen. But Dryden maintains that the Summit Series represented the pinnacle of his career, as he maintains it does for all those other great players who wore Canada’s colours 50 years ago. That has to count for something, particularly since that series has almost as many bad memories for Dryden as good ones.
In his book, he has two incredibly jarring photographs. One is of hundreds of mostly men, clad in suits at a Simpsons department store in Toronto, some of them sitting against appliances, crammed in to watch Game 8 of the series on television. Another is of construction workers in Hamilton, Ont., listening the game while eating their lunches on scaffolding, high above the ground. Dryden talked about a friend who worked for a moving company whose crew decided to pull one of the televisions out of the back of the truck so they could watch the game. It didn’t matter that they were neglecting their duties, since the phone never rang once during the game.
So, basically where I’ve landed is that the 1972 Summit Series is probably not all it’s made out to be by those who believe it was a seminal world-changing event, nor is it as inconsequential as I’ve made it out to be after all these years. It’s probably somewhere in the middle. Like the 1987 Canada Cup and the 2010 Olympics, it’s personal for those who experienced it. And for those who are old enough to have watched it, that’s all that really matters.
"the 1972 Summit Series is probably not all it’s made out to be by those who believe it was a seminal world-changing event..."
World changing? Isn't that a bit too much to ask? We need to ask if the Summit Series changed the 'world of ice hockey', and the answer is most certainly, yes.
I’m a huge supporter of your work, Ken, but I always differed with your past remarks about the Summit Series, a series I always considered a hugely important event for international hockey. I always agreed with you about the caliber of hockey (after all, I own the DVD set and have rewatched it enough times to fully appreciate how far the quality of hockey has come since that time (I have a similar opinion of the overrated ‘76 Canada Cup, with the exception of Denis Potvin and only-half-speed Bobby Orr, who both shone in that tournament)), but despite the quality of the on-ice product in that ‘72 series, it is second to none in terms of its emotion and impact. It played a profound role in the development of the game in the years to follow. I’m really glad to see you’ve come around a bit with regards to appreciating its impact.
That said, my favourite hockey remains the ‘87 Canada Cup (which I also rewatch every few years). It has the perfect blend of some of the old-world-order “us vs. them” mentality and the 1980s skill game. Yeah, it’s not perfect, our memories tend to be romanticized somewhat (eg. we all remember it as “Gretzky and Lemieux together the whole time,” but the truth is they seldom skated as non-PP linemates that tourney until games two and three of the final (but -what- a finish!)), and it kinda lapsed into roller derby on ice at times, but it was still dramatic as heck.
Have a great Labour Day Weekend!