I mentioned previously how after two periods of Game 5, we school kids headed back to our classrooms confident that Canada's 3-goal lead meant victory was in the bag.
Whoops, that didn’t work out.
I'm happy to announce that Game 5 debacle wasn’t repeated in Game 8. No teacher would have tried to teach us that Thursday afternoon.
So, we had somewhere between 90 and a 120 kids packed into a classroom, watching Game 8 on a little TV, being fed a steady stream of misinformation by Hewitt and Conacher.
It was awesome.
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The first five minutes of game 8 sure were awesome. White got a holding penalty at 2:25; Pete Mahovlich ditto at 3:01. Yakushev scored while Canada was down two. Then the Soviet’s Petrov was given a hooking penalty 10 seconds later.
I’m not sure that any of the three could be termed a bad call. The Canadians, though, were squawking after every one. Well, not Petrov’s.
At 4:10 J P Parise stuck out his stick and brought a guy down. Parise for Interference. An infraction for sure, except that I wouldn’t have called it interference. Parise went apeshit after the call – the whole team did. But, Parise made a motion to swing his stick at Kompalla. He checked himself; the zebras, though, had seen enough. Parise got the early shower.
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With Parise gone, the Mahovlich brothers took turns on Esposito’s Left Wing. Both were an improvement I think. Parise had developed some confidence problems in those later games – passing when the best option was to shoot, that sort of thing.
After those first five minutes the game settled down somewhat, though the penalties continued apace. Canada tied the game on the powerplay with a goal credited to Esposito. It was Park’s goal actually. A rebound from a Park shot was put into the Soviet net by defenseman Lutchenko. Espo was there, but it was Lutchenko. Park scored again 10 minutes later and the First Period ended drawn at two.
Bill White made it unofficially three for the defensemen when he scored mid-way through the Second. His goal came amidst a good run for the Dominion’s representatives.
There were two separate Second Periods. The Canadians controlled several consecutive shifts in the first half of the period. The Soviets then took over the second half, scoring two goals to take a 5-3 lead into the Third Period.
Park and White might have scored, but in front of their own net they reminded one of the bad Laddy Smid. Both allowed cross-crease passes to Soviet shooters standing at the far post.
We’ve discussed face-offs. Shadrin & Yakushev teamed up on one goal from a face-off to Dryden’s left. A couple minutes later the exact situation re-arises and Sinden pulls Espo and throws Clarke out there. Clarke wins the draw. Throughout his long career, face-offs and illegal stick work were probably Clarke’s most famous attributes.
Early in the Third we see a fight, a real fight, with gloves dropped and punches thrown – Gilbert vs. Mishakov. With the added bonus of Bergman grabbing Mishakov every time it got interesting. I thought IIHF rules called for expulsion for fighting. Neither were. Plus in those times there was no Third Man In rule.
Sixteen minutes to go in the 72 Summit Series, and nothing much else happens - except the miracle comeback. Ever heard of a guy named Paul Something, Somethingson?
Oh, I mustn’t forget Eagleson. Alan Eagleson got into it with the Soviet militia. Big Pete Mahovlich went over the boards to the rescue, stick held high. Backed by the rest of the guys, he pulled the asshole, I mean Mr. Eagleson, to the safety of the Canadian bench. That has to be the weirdest moment in hockey. Ever. What the hell was Eagleson doing?
In the comments for one of the earlier games, someone quoted Esposito saying that had the Series gone another 8 games, Canada would have won all 8. Maybe. With Orr and Hull [Cheevers, Tremblay and Lemaire] yes. But a trio of desperate one goal victories hardly speaks to dominance.
One thing we haven’t fully touched on here is the intensity of the politics – the Free World vs. Communist Tyranny. It’s hard to explain that feeling 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But it was real. Esposito called the Series a war. It was there all the time. We were told, we believed, they were rats and they’d do whatever they could to give themselves an edge. And they’d do this because they were commies; look at Vietnam for proof.
It showed up in the referee thing, and all the other scheduling and protocol confrontations. It had impregnated all hockey debates for at least a decade. Their “amateurs” playing our amateurs. Their guys ostensibly had other occupations. Except the welders among them never picked up a torch, and the soldiers didn’t march a mile in anybody’s shoes.
So it was a great victory for Canada – still Number One on the ice. The Free World came out looking pretty good too, the individualism of the plucky Canadian capitalists triumphed over the collective approach of the USSR team.
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We’ll see about that Numba One thing. We intend to continue this exploration with the 74 WHA Series, the 76 Canada Cup and perhaps even the return of Canada to the World Hockey Championship in 1977.
Da Da Canada! Da Da Canada! Da Da Canada!
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