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Dryden reflects on how Summit Series changed hockey 50 years later – NHL.com

Published

2 years ago

September 3, 2022

“That series clearly and undeniably is the most important moment in hockey’s history. Not Canadian hockey history, but in hockey’s history,” the Hall of Fame goalie told NHL.com on Thursday on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Game 1, a stunning 7-3 romp for the Soviets at the Montreal Forum on Sept. 2, 1972.

“Up until that moment, hockey was definitively a Canadian game,” Dryden said. “We were the originators of hockey, the developers, the world’s best at it. Our way was the hockey way.

“Others could play differently but that was their fault. Different meant inferior. Different is interesting, but if different is inferior, who cares? In that series, the Soviet team showed there is another way to play and another way to prepare to play.”

Late photographer Denis Brodeur, Martin’s father, shot a legendary sequence of photos capturing the Summit Series-clinching goal of Paul Henderson (right). Denis Brodeur collection/Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

The Soviets had defeated a team of Canadian amateurs 5-0 at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France, on their way to the gold medal. Canada won the bronze, leading bombastic Soviet coach Anatoli Tarasov to brag that his team could beat the best the NHL could throw at him. Hockey Canada accepted the challenge, negotiating with the Soviets through NHL Players’ Association president and player agent Alan Eagleson to set up an eight-game series to be played in September 1972.

Canada would rebound from its Game 1 humiliation with a 4-1 victory in Game 2 in Toronto two nights later. The teams then tied 4-4 in Game 3 in Winnipeg on Sept. 6 before the Soviets won 5-3 in Game 4 in Vancouver on Sept. 8.

With that Game 4 loss, a good deal of Canada on the backs of the team, Phil Esposito emptied his heart on live television after the game:

“To the people across Canada, we tried, we gave it our best,” he said. “And to the people that boo us, geez, I’m really… all of us guys are really disheartened, and we’re disillusioned, and we’re disappointed at some of the people. … If the Russians boo their players, then I’ll come back and apologize to each one of the Canadians but I don’t think they will.”

Esposito went on, saying the team suited up for love of country, not money. And at that point, a nation realized that these players truly cared about what they had signed on for.

Ken Dryden prepares for a shot by the Soviet Union’s Boris Mikhailov with Alexander Yakushev standing by, Canadian defenseman Gary Bergman at right. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

Back home in Moscow, the hosts won 5-4 in Game 5 on Sept. 22 to set the stage for Canada’s backs-to-the-wall rally and three straight wins — 3-2, 4-3 and 6-5 from Sept. 24-28 — to win the series 4-3-1. Paul Henderson scored the winner in each of the final three victories, becoming a national icon in the process.

“It’s the most vivid, meaningful hockey experience that I have had,” said Dryden, author of the new book “The Series: What I Remember, What It Felt Like, What It Feels Like Now.”

“If you asked every player on Team Canada, I think they’d say the same. We were on lots of Stanley Cup-winning teams. Even if on those teams we would have played different kinds of roles, that’s how we feel. You can’t anticipate how you’re going to feel. You can’t orchestrate how you’re going to feel. You can’t force yourself to feel a certain way. You feel as you feel. That’s what has happened.

“I think the odd thing, which is really interesting and really revealing, is that I think almost all the players on the Soviet team would say the same thing. They won all kinds of world championships and Olympic gold medals, and they didn’t win this series.”

Phil Esposito argues with an official during a game in Moscow, Canada’s Brad Park at left, the Soviet Union’s Alex Ragulin at right. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

Dryden was the most dominant goalie in the NHL in the 1970s, a brilliant performer for the Montreal Canadiens. He won the Stanley Cup six times, the Vezina Trophy as the top goalie in the NHL five times, and the 1971-72 Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year after he’d won the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the postseason.

Elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, Dryden was voted among the 100 Greatest NHL Players in 2017 for the League’s centennial celebration.

But all of these achievements are filed behind his experience with Team Canada in the Summit Series.

A half-century later, those eight games remain a defining moment of the game — for the vastly different style of play, for the dramatic Cold War politics of the day, for a series that was anything but the walk-over predicted for Canada.

Through the years, there have been World Championship, Olympic Games, Canada Cup and World Cup tournaments and various tours and one-off games between NHL teams and squads from the former Soviet Union. But no series has had the importance of the Summit Series, and no other has pitted political ideologies against each other or reshaped the very way hockey is played.

The Soviet Union’s Valeri Kharlamov leads his team through warmups at the Montreal Forum before Game 1 on Sept. 2, 1972. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

“The way the Soviets played just opened minds,” Dryden said. “It took a while for those minds to open fully, but after that series, people did start to think about the training a different way — off-ice training and the value of that. Of on-ice training, where a pass fits in and the patterns in which you play. Once there’s a second way to play, there’s a second way, a fifth way, a 10th way.

“Players start to imagine different ways to do things and conceiving of them and practicing them and making them happen. And coaches do the same. That all is the legacy of that series.”

It began with the largely unknown Soviets, laughed at for their mismatched equipment, demolishing Canada in Game 1.

The opener began predictably enough, the hosts up 1-0 after 30 seconds on a goal by Esposito, up 2-0 by 6:32 on a goal by Henderson.

Soviet Union goalie Vladislav Tretiak watches Game 1 action through the fog of a steamy night at the Montreal Forum. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

But the superior conditioning of the Soviets soon was evident; they scored twice on Dryden before the first period was over, once shorthanded, then twice more in the second. A goal by Canada’s Bobby Clarke at 8:22 of the third on Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak offered a flicker of hope, but the Soviets then scored three unanswered goals in a span of 5:05 to make the embarrassment complete.

Defenseman Pat Stapleton, a member of Team Canada, tirelessly promoted the series, its historic significance and its legacy — in schools, with passers-by in the street and everywhere in between — until his death in 2020.

In 2016, sitting in the Montreal Forum, the hockey rink dismantled 20 years earlier with the building’s renovation following the Canadiens’ move to Bell Centre, Stapleton thought back to 1972 and remembered the shell-shock of Game 1.

“We got on the bus after the game, and I was sitting at the window when Ken (Dryden) sat down beside me,” he recalled. “He turned to me and said, ‘What happened?’ and I remember saying, ‘I think we lost our composure.'”

Sitting almost wordlessly bound for the airport and their flight to Toronto for Game 2, little did Stapleton or Dryden know that Canada, as a nation, was having a nervous breakdown.

The 35-member Team Canada as assembled in Toronto for their August 1972 training camp. Bottom row, from left: Tony Esposito, Brad Park, Stan Mikita, Phil Esposito, coach Harry Sinden, organizer Alan Eagleson, assistant coach John Ferguson, Frank Mahovlich, Jean Ratelle, Bobby Orr, Ken Dryden. Second row, from left: executive Bob Haggert, Dennis Hull, Mickey Redmond, Paul Henderson, Red Berenson, Wayne Cashman, Vic Hadfield, Ed Johnston, Bill Goldsworthy, Ron Ellis, Rod Gilbert, executive Mike Cannon. Third row, from left: trainer Joe Sgro, Yvan Cournoyer, Gary Bergman, Dale Tallon, Bill White, Peter Mahovlich, Serge Savard, Jocelyn Guevremont, Gilbert Perreault, Pat Stapleton, trainer Frosty Forristall. Top row, from left: massage therapist Karl Elieff, Marcel Dionne, Bobby Clarke, Don Awrey, Brian Glennie, Rod Seiling, Guy Lapointe, Richard Martin, Jean-Paul Parise, equipment manager Tommy Naylor. MacDonald Stewart/Hockey Hall of Fame

“The game we want to forget,” Team Canada defenseman Serge Savard said with a tight grin. “The game we don’t want to talk about.”

If this series made Henderson a national icon for his winning goals in Games 6, 7 and 8, it was about much more than one man’s heroics. This was about two teams going at each other with hammer and sickle and tong, with Canada winning on Henderson’s dramatic goal with 34 seconds remaining in Game 8 on Sept. 28, 1972.

Sixteen million of 22 million Canadians watched the final game, scratchy television coverage beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET. Between 9:30 a.m. on the West Coast and 2 p.m. in Newfoundland, the huge majority of Canadians were gathered around TV sets at work and in classrooms, a country holding its collective breath.

A dozen or more books have been published in English about the Summit Series, many more including those in French and Russian. There have been scholarly theses written and documentaries produced; the latest of the latter is a film titled “Summit 72” that will premiere on CBC in Canada on Sept. 14, running in one-hour segments on four consecutive Wednesdays.

The new book by Dryden, a 75-year-old educator, lecturer and award-winning author, is one of a handful published for the 50th anniversary, his a deeply personal at-the-moment view of the series.

Savard, who with Larry Robinson and Guy Lapointe made up the Canadiens’ “Big Three” on defense in front of Dryden during the 1970s, views the Summit Series as much more than 480 minutes of hockey.

The Canadian and Soviet teams shake hands after Game 8 in Moscow. Among the players here are goalies Ken Dryden (second from right) and Vladislav Tretiak (20). Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

“It became a political series, and that wasn’t our fault. We didn’t want that,” Savard has said of the players. “The Russians were leading the series when we went over there and those guys wanted to show the world that their way of doing things was the right way, that their way of training was the best, that they had the best athletes in the world.

“All of a sudden, we woke up and said, ‘Hey, we invented this game, not you guys.’ Yet (Soviet leader Leonid) Brezhnev was sitting behind the net in one corner. It was political and we were caught in the middle of it.”

Political realities of the day have doused international reunion plans, no members of the Soviet team coming to Canada to mark the half-century anniversary with members of Team Canada. But Dryden expects that they too will remember a series for the ages.

“In the end,” Dryden said, “it has had the effect that it has on the both of us because of the intensity of it and the difficulty and hardness of it. In the end, neither of us got what we wanted and both of us got what we needed.

“We wanted to win the series in eight straight games and by big scores. We needed to win the series. They wanted to win the series. They needed to show that they could play, in their way, a different way, at the top. They got that, and we got what we needed. I think they’re really proud of themselves for doing that and I think we’re proud of ourselves for doing what we needed to do.”

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NHL roundup: Hurricanes beat Flyers 6-4 for seventh straight win

Published

3 hours ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Martin Necas scored a go-ahead goal with 29 seconds left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-4 on Tuesday night.

It was the seventh straight win for the Hurricanes, who also got goals from Jack Roslovic, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson and Jackson Blake. Seth Jarvis added an empty-net goal in the final seconds.

Necas typically saves his game-winners for overtime, with nine in his career, but he was able to take care of business in regulation with his team-best seventh goal of the season.

Travis Konecny scored two goals and had two assists for the Flyers. Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett also scored for Philadelphia.

Aleksei Kolosov made 28 saves for the Flyers, who trailed 2-1, 3-1 and 4-3 but kept coming back. Carolina’s Pyotr Kochetkov struggled in net allowing four goals on just 16 shots.

Elsewhere in the NHL on Tuesday:

—

SABRES 5 SENATORS 1

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Bowen Byram and Tage Thompson scored 16 seconds apart to open the third period, and Buffalo snapped a three-game skid with a win over Ottawa.

Byram scored twice, JJ Peterka had two goals and an assist and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 37 saves.

Ridly Greig converted his own rebound in cutting Buffalo’s lead to 2-1 with 7:31 left in the second period. Linus Ullmark made 29 saves in dropping to 1-4 in his past five starts.

Buffalo went up 3-1 on Byram’s second goal 21 seconds into the third period. The defenceman’s shot from inside the blue line sneaked through Ullmark, with the puck rolling down the goalie’s pad, dropping into the crease and trickling across the line. Thompson scored when he crashed the net, was knocked over by defender Jake Sanderson and was lying in the crease when Alex Tuch’s shot went in off his shoulder.

—

MAPLE LEAFS 4 BRUINS 0

TORONTO (AP) — Anthony Stolarz made 29 saves for his first shutout of the season in Toronto’s 4-0 victory over Boston.

Morgan Rielly had a goal and two assists as Toronto connected three times on the power play. William Nylander and Matthew Knies added a goal and an assist each. Mitch Marner had two assists of his own. Steven Lorentz rounded out the scoring into the empty net.

The Leafs played without captain Auston Matthews, who is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Jeremy Swayman made 23 stops for Boston, which was coming off consecutive weekend shutouts of the Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken.

Toronto’s porous 31st-ranked power play scored for the second time in as many games at 8:44 of the second period when Rielly fired through a screen. Nylander banked in his team-leading 10th goal of the season on another man advantage 1:14 later for a 2-0 lead.

The Bruins entered the game 8-0-0 in the regular season against their Atlantic Division rival dating back to Jan. 14, 2023.

—

FLAMES 3 CANADIENS 2 (OT)

MONTREAL (AP) — Matt Coronato scored twice as Calgary came back to defeat Montreal in overtime.

Coronato tied the game with 2:46 remaining in regulation when he cruised into the slot and went off the post and in. He then buried the winning goal seven seconds into the extra period.

Connor Zary also scored for Calgary, which won its second game in seven outings. Dustin Wolf stopped 21 shots.

Joel Armia — with a short-handed goal — and Brendan Gallagher scored for Montreal (4-7-2). Armia also provided an assist, while Sam Montembeault made 32 saves as the Canadiens’ losing streak extended to four games.

Zary opened the scoring with his third 4:20 into the second period when he pounced on a loose puck in the slot and fired a shot past Montembeault.

Gallagher then slipped the puck between Wolf’s pads at 16:23 to level the score with his fifth of the season.

—

BLUES 3 LIGHTNING 2

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jordan Kyrou, Alexey Toropchenko and Oskar Sundqvist scored to help St. Louis beat Tampa Bay 3-2.

Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for his 149th career win moving him past Jake Allen for second place in franchise history, just two wins behind Mike Liut’s 151.

Nick Perbix and Victor Hedman scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning who have lost three straight games.

Kyrou scored his fourth goal of the season 8:51 into the third period to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead.

Toropchenko scored his first goal of the season with 1:35 remaining in the second period to put St. Louis ahead 2-1 after Sundqvist tied the game with his first of the season 7:47 into the period.

—

ISLANDERS 4 PENGUINS 3 (SO)

NEW YORK (AP) — Bo Horvat scored the only goal in a shootout and New York rallied past Pittsburgh 4-3.

New York goalie Ilya Sorokin denied Rickard Rakell, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang in the shootout and finished with 32 saves. Kyle Palmieri had a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who trailed 3-1 midway through the third period.

Simon Holmstrom and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored in the third for New York. Horvat had two assists.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist to lead Pittsburgh. Crosby got his 598th career goal, and Michael Bunting also scored. Rakell added two assists.

Alex Nedeljkovich stopped 23 shots for the Penguins, who have lost seven of nine. They won their previous two following a six-game skid.

—

KINGS 5 WILD 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Trevor Lewis scored twice, Kevin Fiala added another on the power play and Los Angeles beat Minnesota 5-1.

Warren Foegele and Quinton Byfield also scored for Los Angeles, which was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a 3-0 win in Nashville a night earlier. David Rittich made 23 saves for the Kings.

Fiala, who was traded to Los Angeles in 2022 by Minnesota for a first-round pick draft pick and defenceman Brock Faber, scored his seventh goal of the season. He now has three goals and six assists in his last seven games against the Wild.

Minnesota, which had won three in a row, opened the scoring in the second period on Zach Bogosian’s first goal of the season. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped 23 shots for the Wild.

—

JETS 3 UTAH 0

WINNIPEG, Man. (AP) — Nino Niederreiter scored twice in his 900th NHL career game and Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves to help Winnipeg defeat Utah 3-0.

It was Hellebuyck’s second shutout of the season and 39th of this career.

Gabriel Vilardi also scored for the Jets. Adam Lowry assisted on both goals by Niederreiter.

Utah ended a run of picking up points in three consecutive games (1-0-2).

Karel Vejmelka stopped 25 shots for Utah in its second stop on a four-game road trip.

Jets winger Kyle Connor had his franchise-record, season-opening points streak end at 12 games.

—

AVALANCHE 6 KRAKEN 3

DENVER (AP) — Arturri Lehkonen scored the go-ahead goal on a power play in his season debut and Nathan MacKinnon had five assists as Colorado beat Seattle 6-3.

Mikko Rantanen added two goals for the Avalanche, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Ivan Ivan, Nikolai Kovalenko and Chris Wagner also scored for Colorado.

Cale Makar had two assists but the star defenceman barely played in the second half of the game and appeared to be slowed by an apparent injury during a brief shift.

MacKinnon and Makar extended their season-opening point streaks to 13 games.

Lehkonen played for the first time since off-season shoulder surgery.

Jared McCann, Jaden Schwartz and Brandon Montour scored for the Kraken.

—

CANUCKS 5 DUCKS 1

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Brock Boeser, Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood had a goal and an assist apiece, and Quinn Hughes recorded his 300th career assist in Vancouver’s victory over Anaheim.

Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson also scored and Hughes had three assists for the Canucks, who have won six of eight. Kevin Lankinen made 21 saves in Vancouver’s sixth consecutive win over the Ducks.

Olen Zellweger scored a power-play goal early in the first period for Anaheim, which has lost seven of nine. Lukas Dostal stopped 31 shots.

Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko took shots from teammates again after the morning skate, and he could return to practice this week. The Southern California native and 2023-24 Vezina Trophy finalist hasn’t played this season due to a knee injury incurred late last season.

—

SHARKS 2 BLUE JACKETS 1 (OT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Alex Wennberg scored 3:11 into overtime and San Jose celebrated the return of No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini with a win over Columbus.

Defenceman Jack Thompson scored his first career goal for the Sharks (4-8-2), who entered the night with the worst record in the NHL. San Jose has won four of five.

Celebrini, the top pick in the 2024 NHL draft, missed 12 games with a hip injury he sustained in the season opener Oct. 10 — an injury first incurred during the pre-season. Celebrini didn’t score and missed a shot early in overtime.

San Jose goalie Vitek Vanacek was fantastic in net, making 49 saves.

Blue Jackets right wing Kirill Marchenko scored for the second consecutive game. Columbus (5-6-1) has lost three straight.

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Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

1 day ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

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Allen nets shutout as Devils burn Oilers 3-0

Published

2 days ago

November 4, 2024

Anne Joseph

EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.

The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.

Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.

TAKEAWAYS

Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.

Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.

KEY MOMENT

New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.

KEY RETURN?

Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.

OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN

The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.

The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.

UP NEXT

Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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