eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781617499463 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2006 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Al Strachan is a columnist with the Toronto Sun and an analyst with the CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. He has been writing about hockey and hanging out with NHL players, coaches, general managers, and owners for 30 years. He lives in Toronto.
Read an Excerpt
Go to the Net
Eight Goals That Changed the Game
By Al Strachan
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2006 Al StrachanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61749-946-3
CHAPTER 1
The Goal: February 11, 1979
Game three of the Challenge Cup best-of-three final. Scored by Boris Mikhailov (assisted by Alexander Golikov) at 5:47 of the second period. Team USSR 6, Team NHL 0.
There was no National Hockey League All-Star Game in 1979. Instead, there would be further proof that Canadian hockey was the best in the world. At least, that was the theory.
Instead of the meaningless time-waster pitting the Campbell Conference all-stars against those from the Prince of Wales Conference, Team NHL would face the Soviet Union in a best-of-three series called the Challenge Cup.
The site was to be the famed Madison Square Garden in New York, and the underlying premise was that the spectacle would be so attractive to the sports fans of the United States that a lucrative network television contract for the NHL would surely become little more than a formality.
For all intents and purposes, Team NHL was Team Canada. Granted, three Swedes — Borje Salming, Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg — were added to an otherwise all-Canadian roster, but Salming was the only one who would play regularly. Halfway through the first game, Nilsson and Hedberg decided to do some freelancing during a power play and coach Scotty Bowman immediately yanked them off the ice and never sent them out again.
"I was really mad," explained Guy Lafleur, the other NHL forward on the power play at the time. "I was all alone waiting for the pass and those two kept passing the puck back and forth with Salming in our own zone. Three times they had a chance to pass to me and they didn't. I finally got so mad I went to the bench."
Shortly afterwards, so did Hedberg and Nilsson. But unlike Lafleur, the Swedes stayed there.
In fact, Bowman was so miffed at the Swedish duo that he scratched them for the whole of the second game as well, and gave them only minimal ice time in the third.
Bowman had instituted a precise game plan, and in those days he was a true taskmaster — not as severe as his Soviet counterpart Viktor Tikhonov, perhaps, but as demanding a coach as any in the NHL. If Hedberg and Nilsson wanted to do things their own way, they could do it when they were playing for the New York Rangers, not for him.
At the time of the tournament, Canada was considered to be the world's top hockey nation. Therefore, it had by far the most to lose in this matchup. If the Soviets lost the series, they could repeat what they had said a few times before it began: "We consider the International Ice Hockey Federation's world championship to be the true barometer of hockey supremacy. This is just an exhibition series." But if the Soviets won, the shock to the Canadian psyche would be a further devastating blow to a country that was in something of a funk. The seventies were not the happiest of times for Canada.
The Parti Québécois had come to power in Quebec, and the very fabric of the nation was threatened. On the economic front, the inflationary spiral soared unabated, the dollar was in a precipitous slide and the labour unions were flexing their muscles with increasing regularity.
One of the few sources of Canadian national pride — perhaps the only one of any consequence to most blue-collar Canadians — was the fervent belief that when it came to the game Canada had invented, Canadians were the best in the world. To the average Canadian fan, this would be no mere three-game exhibition series. It was democracy versus Communism, the maple leaf versus the hammer and sickle, the game's traditional masters versus the steadily improving challengers.
The Canadian roster was loaded with the stars of the day. People like Lafleur, Bobby Clarke and Lanny McDonald were among the league's top scorers. Don Marcotte and Bob Gainey were considered to be the elite checkers. Ken Dryden and Gerry Cheevers were the top goalies.
The defence? Well, that might be something of a problem. Larry Robinson, Denis Potvin, Serge Savard and Salming were there, but this was not a golden era for NHL defencemen. The few at the top were great, but depth was a luxury the Canadians did not possess. Rounding out the blueline corps were Barry Beck and Robert Picard.
The Challenge Cup was the first series of this nature since the famous 1972 Summit Series, but in the interim, the two countries had been involved in a number of skirmishes at varying levels.
In the 1976 Canada Cup, the USSR had lost 3–1 to Canada in the round-robin segment of the tournament and hadn't advanced to the final, which Canada won by defeating Czechoslovakia.
There had also been assorted club matches — in which the Soviets had built a somewhat ominous 10–5–2 edge, even though all seventeen games were played in North America.
Canada had resumed participation in the annual world championship in 1977, but sent only players whose NHL teams had been eliminated from the playoffs. As a result, the Canadians were soundly trounced, but no one back home considered that to be of any import, since most of the country's best players were unavailable.
The Challenge Cup was the first head-to-head, best-against-best series in seven years, and even though the Soviets were masters of the self-serving lie, they could not deny that they were bringing a powerhouse team.
"We are taking to New York twenty-four players, our best lineup," said Tikhonov.
Well, sort of. They weren't taking Viacheslav Fetisov, the brilliant young defenceman who, ten years later, made his way to the NHL and starred for nine years with the New Jersey Devils and Detroit Red Wings. Boris Alexandrov, who had the Montreal Canadiens gaping when they watched him in practice prior to the December 31, 1975, game between the Canadiens and Central Red Army, wasn't there either. Even though he had proved himself to be a brilliant player, perhaps the most talented in the entire Soviet system, he had become too aware of that talent for their liking. He wasn't sufficiently subservient. He enjoyed his vodka. He didn't exhibit the proper deference to Comrade Coach, whoever that might have been at the time. So he was banished from the national team.
There was no room for individualism in the Soviet system. Even though the national team was composed of "players," what those people did with the game could hardly be described as play. They worked at hockey. There was no fun in their game, and certainly no joking at practice. Their lives were rigidly structured, both on and off the ice. If they were travelling out of the country, they were accompanied by KGB guards; and, with extremely rare exceptions, they were not allowed to talk to the media.
Prisoners in Canadian penitentiaries had an easier life than those "players." The Soviets worked hard for eleven months of the year, and if they won the world championship — but only if — they were rewarded with a month at a resort on the Black Sea.
"I think the biggest edge they had back then was in conditioning," recalled Bowman in a 2005 interview. "They don't have that edge today, but they did then because they played for eleven months a year.
"I know that in the seventies, their complete team in VO2 testing was in the mid- to high seventies.[VO2 testing measures the oxygen an athlete can process; the more oxygen you use, the fitter you are.] There was no team like that in the NHL. For example, in Montreal we used to test the players and the highest we ever had was Bob Gainey. He was 73. Lafleur was somewhere around 70." And the lowest? "Pete Mahovlich. He was 35." But he wasn't that far behind the others, Bowman said. "We had a lot of our defencemen in the 40s. Jacques Laperriere was 42 or something like that. If you got to 59 in the NHL, you were considered to be in good shape."
Of the twenty-four players on the 1979 Soviet squad, eleven were in the army, four were in the navy and two were in the air force. Long stretches away from home were the norm for them, so when Tikhonov left Moscow with his team, he didn't see any need to rush to New York. Instead of travelling directly from the Soviet Union to North America, the entourage went first to the Netherlands for a three-week training camp.
Why the Netherlands, of all places? Because it was there that Tikhonov's operatives had been able to find a rink that had exactly the same dimensions as Madison Square Garden.
Once in the Netherlands, they operated on Eastern Standard Time — not European time, but New York time.
They went back to Moscow for two days, then flew from there to New York, with a refuelling stop in Newfoundland. Throughout, they continued to operate on Eastern Standard Time. The idea was that when they finally arrived in the United States, on the Sunday night prior to Thursday's opening game of the tournament, the effects of jet lag would be minimal.
While they were in Holland, they followed their usual regimen — at least two practices a day, combined with a fair amount of dry-land training and soccer in the off-hours "to keep in shape."
The NHL, meanwhile, was playing its full schedule. The Challenge Cup had been squeezed into a slightly extended all-star break, but there certainly would be no three-week training camp for the NHLers. They were to have no more than two practices in which to prepare for the strongest Soviet team in history.
Propaganda was a very important tool for those who ran the Kremlin in those days, and because sporting events were so widely watched, the Soviets put a lot of effort — not all of it within the bounds of legality outside the USSR — into building teams that would be the world's best.
Failure was not tolerated, and when the team coached by Boris "Chuckles" Kulagin lost twice to Sweden at the 1977 world championship in Vienna and failed to win the gold medal, Kulagin was replaced by Tikhonov and his Challenge Cup assistant, Vladimir Yurzin.
After examining the areas in which the Canadians had found success, those two incorporated some tactical changes into their game prior to the Challenge Cup. The Soviets began shooting a bit more than they once did, no longer necessarily waiting for the perfect opportunity to score. Once in a while, although not very often, they even voluntarily gave up possession of the puck and opted for the Canadian dump-and-chase style.
In 1972, all the bodychecking had been one way: Canadians gave, Soviets took. But now the Soviets, especially defencemen like Sergei Babinov, were capable of administering the occasional crunching body check.
"He is about as close to our style as any of their defencemen," said Bowman. "He's chunky, a Leo Boivin style. He likes to hit people and he gives the puck to his partner a lot rather than control the play."
There had also been some sartorial and tonsorial changes to the Soviet squad. When their predecessors had arrived in Canada for the 1972 Summit Series, there was no doubt that these guys were fresh from the backwaters of Europe. They dressed in clothes that had long since gone out of style in North America, and their personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. If you were in an elevator with them, you'd never forget the experience.
But when the Soviet squad arrived in New York in 1979, the players looked just like American businessmen. Their hair was stylishly long, but neatly coiffed. When they were lounging around the hotel, they tended to wear identical sweatsuits, but if the occasion demanded a little more formality, they had a blazer-and-slacks ensemble. If the occasion were more formal still, they all wore elegant black suits with grey pinstripes. And if it were more formal than that, they still wore their suits. They did, after all, represent a Communist regime. The NHL staged a black-tie testimonial dinner for former league president Clarence Campbell during the run-up to the tournament and offered to rent tuxedos for all the Soviets. They declined. There were limits to their transition into North Americans.
They sampled the New York nightlife as any visiting businessmen might — although their tours were more structured than most. They were not allowed to travel in small groups, only in larger groups accompanied by KGB men.
The veteran forward Vladimir Petrov was their designated tour organizer, and their liaison with the NHL was Aggie Kukulowicz, a Russian speaker who worked for Air Canada and was a regular part of the Canadian entourage whenever the Russians were involved.
On the day after the Soviets arrived in New York, Petrov approached Kukulowicz. "Aggie, my friend," he said, "we want to go to a movie. We want a movie with a lot of sex, a lot of music, a lot of action and a sense of history."
His group went to see Superman.
Since the Manhattan showing of Superman didn't feature Russian subtitles, they took along their own interpreter, who recited the dialogue in Russian despite frequent shouts from other patrons of "Keep it down back there!" or the more succinct "Shut up!"
The others on the team who wanted to see the same type of movie — save the requirements of music, action and history — went to Times Square. The movies in that seedy district didn't require any translation of dialogue.
Despite signs that the Russians were becoming more attuned to modern ways, Bowman wasn't anticipating any major surprises. He had been Canada's head coach in the 1976 Canada Cup, and his Canadiens had twice faced Soviet club teams. He said that he intended to have Team NHL use basically the same style as his Canadiens — a high-tempo, defensively aware approach.
The most obvious difference would come in the forechecking, he said. The Canadiens, because they were better skaters than most teams in the league, tended to apply maximum forechecking pressure. Not only were they not afraid to go after the puck behind the opposition's net, but there were occasions when an entire forward line might be back there. Given the Soviets' speed and passing skills, Team NHL would have to be more cautious.
"One long pass beating two or three people would be disastrous," said Bowman on the eve of the tournament. "You can't let them trap too many guys. Patience is a big factor. You can't go charging after them."
But on the other hand, it would be equally disastrous to sit back and let the Soviets come to Team NHL.
"You've got to be in motion," Bowman said. "You've got to be constantly circling and moving."
Furthermore, that circling and moving had to be done in the centre of the rink, where the Soviets liked to operate.
Former NHL player Andre Boudrias, later a member of the Canadiens' front-office staff, had done some scouting of the Soviets on Bowman's behalf.
"They're still playing basically the same kind of game," he said. "They're coming out up the middle. And if they're stopped at the blue line, they won't shoot it in. They'll go back and regroup and come up the middle again."
But no matter how skilled the Soviet forwards might be, any wizardry they intended to perform required possession of the puck. And that's where Bowman hoped to thwart them. His Canadiens invariably ran up a decided advantage in puck-possession time, and he wanted Team NHL to do the same.
"How good do you think Guy Lafleur is defensively?" he asked. "Average? Below average? The point is that it doesn't really matter because he has the puck so much. With the Canadiens, our offence is our best defence. If the offence is working, that provides the defence. We have to play the Soviets the same way."
In a perfect example of how these international games raised the calibre of hockey on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Bowman wanted his team to borrow something from the Soviet style. He wanted them to increase their already high possession time. He wanted them to be judicious in their shot selection because a bad shot was a low-percentage play that would probably result in lost possession — or even worse, an odd-man rush. And he wanted them to eschew the dump-and-chase style. Again, it was a matter of maintaining puck possession.
In the press conferences, Tikhonov would downplay his team's abilities and the importance of the series. But at the same time, he would talk about "surprises" that were to be forthcoming. Bill Torrey, the general manager of Team NHL, refused to take Tikhonov's musings seriously. "I'm pretty sure we know what they've got in mind when they say they might surprise us," he said, "and we're ready for it."
Oh really? How ready?
"I'd rather not say what we have in mind."
Team captain Bobby Clarke (he was Bobby back then, but after his retirement he became Bob) admitted that the players had some nagging doubts about what they might encounter, but were determined not to let themselves be psyched out.
"There's no sense letting them get us worried with their talk about surprises," he said. "We'll just go out there and see what they're doing and worry about it then."
But despite the bravado, even before the series had started, the Canadians had concluded after two practices that their defence corps was probably no match for the Soviet forwards. A hasty call was made to Montreal's Guy Lapointe, who had been excused from the team because of a mild attack of pneumonia. "Forget your chest pains," he was told. "Get yourself to New York as fast as possible."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Go to the Net by Al Strachan. Copyright © 2006 Al Strachan. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,The Goal: February 11, 1979,
The Goal: May 10, 1979,
The Goal: September 13, 1984,
The Goal: September 15, 1987,
The Goal: April 21, 1988,
The Goal: September 16, 1991,
The Goal: June 19-20, 1999,
The Goal: February 24, 2002,
Afterword,
Acknowledgments,
Photo Gallery,