(soft music) (man): There's no question we're products of our geography.

When you fly over, it's just diamonds.

The ice is the magic carpet.

That hockey rink, that's our best friend.

It's a great playground, in Russia and in Canada and yeah... we are very blessed to have that.

(woman): Hockey is in our DNA.

Skating outside and believing that you are just about to score a goal like Anderson used to do, you are stopping the puck like Tretiak used to do.

The influence that the '72 series had on Canadian kids is huge.

It was the greatest event ever.

It was the first time that we had the best players of Canada playing against the Russians.

- There are people all over the world playing this game on television in the Soviet Union, all over Europe, Canada and in the United States.

- Such an iconic moment, it's such a historic moment, it's a part of the Canadian curriculum.

(commentator, inaudible) - Scores!

- Hockey is our game.

And hockey is Russia's game.

(commentator): ...racing away on a breakaway, coming in on goal.

He shoots, he scores!

- And it really gets to the people.

It gets to the fans.

- It's 50 years and I still get goosebumps.

(all): Go, Canada, go!

- You need to understand what '72 was.

You need to know the history, the month, the lead up, the drama, the politics, everything that was ingrained.

- It was the Cold War at that time, but for a four-week period, everyone put down their weapons and said, "Hey, we're going to have this battle on the ice... ...but we're going to shake hands when it's over."

That was a great example for people in Canada and people in the Soviet Union.

The '72 series was an ice breaker for a lot of reasons.

(commentator): Takes a shot and scores!

- It was the greatest hockey that was ever played.

(soft music) - ...since I've been here in Moscow.

Fifty years ago, it's a long time.

When you come as a young diplomat, from a NATO country, speaking Russian, they pay a lot of attention to you.

Here in the heart of communism, the heart of the enemy.

It was the Cold War, we almost had a nuclear war in the early 60s, over the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We had millions of soldiers lined up on either side of the east-west frontier, thousands of missiles pointed at each other.

- It was pre-Glasnost.

The Americans and the Soviets were at loggerheads.

The one difference in the equation was Pierre Trudeau.

He had come to power in '68.

It was kind of our opening to the world.

Pierre Trudeau had two prime objectives internationally.

One was to bring China in from the cold; he was one of the first western leaders to recognize China, and in May 1971, he became the first Prime Minister of Canada to go to the Soviet Union.

- It was a very important trip.

It seemed that we were going to be in a situation of war.

And maybe our Third World War.

And Pierre Trudeau did not see that for the planet's future.

We had defined the middle ground for now.

In terms of what Canada could offer to Russia and indeed what Russia could offer to us.

- His goal was detente.

Try and find areas of common ground.

And my job was to work on exchanges.

Normally, you invite the other side to come for a reciprocal visit.

And normally, they don't take it up.

But all of a sudden, Kosygin, the Soviet minister, decides he's going to come back to Canada within five months.

The light went on for him.

One of the ways to improve relations with Canadians was through hockey.

We were arguing for ten years to play the Soviets with our best professionals.

And not getting anywhere.

We were being blocked by the International Ice Hockey Federation and the Olympic Committee.

And behind them was the Soviet Union.

(Russian national anthem) They didn't want to play us.

Because they were winning all the Olympics and the World Championships.

That's what counted for them, was the medals.

Its Soviet man is superior to the Capitalist man.

You know, the '72 hockey series just didn't fall from the sky and happen.

It took place in the context.

It's here.

And beyond that is the relationship between Canada and the Soviet Union.

And then beyond that is the broader circle.

(commentator): ...captain Jean Béliveau... - At that point in time, Canada wasn't participating in other hockey international competition and there was also so much curiosity about the Soviet Union because they were doing real well internationally so let's put these two teams together.

- Well, hockey had never been measured properly.

You would either send a B team to the Olympics or you always said, "Well, if we could only send our NHLers, we'd win gold all the time," and a lot of people were saying, not necessarily so.

So this time, there was gonna be no argument, it was going to be best on best.

- The common view in Canada, I'd say... 95% was that once we had our best out there, we were going to clean up on them.

- Those who dare to question the eight-game sweep theory were dismissed as commies or people who were crazy.

And you were immediately ostracized if you didn't go along with the prevailing attitude.

People stopped talking to you.

I got a lot of cold shoulder myself because they didn't like some of the reporting that appeared in "Time."

- Players like myself and other veteran national team players when asked, said, "These guys are good and they are going to give the NHL a handful."

Well, that was heresy.

- And we even had Dick Beddoes from the "Globe & Mail" saying that he would eat his column if the Soviets won one game.

Put it in borscht and eat his words.

- As far as I was concerned, once we set up the series and had our team together, I thought we'd win eight straight handily.

- I hope the Soviet team will excuse me if I show a slight favouritism towards the players who wear the maple leaf.

I will probably support and favour that team but... - Pierre was very excited about the hockey game.

And of opening up doors, which Canada was doing, with very good people behind us.

- I want to reassure our Soviet friends that I will have no influence on the team.

As a matter a fact, I tried to have and I didn't have any success.

(crowd laughing) - I'm Foster Hewitt and I'll be doing a play-by-play, and with me is my sidekick, Brian Conacher, to do the colour.

- The night of September the 2nd, and it truly was a hot and steamy day, the ice was sweating, there was a low mist over the ice when the skaters first went out and they had to skate around and circulate the air to literally clear the air, so you knew that it was going to be a grind, it was going to be tough to play under those conditions.

It was a historic moment.

There was a lot of ceremony.

(announcer): Yvan Cournoyer.

(cheering) Frank Mahovlich!

(cheering) - Ken Dryden!

(announcer): Le numéro 20, number 20, Vladislav Tretiak!

- I remember like it was yesterday, 11 years old, and it was a big day because, obviously if you follow hockey, there was this tremendous build-up for that opening night.

(chuckles) My next-door neighbours had one of the first colour TVs in the neighbourhood so we went next door to watch the games at his house, which was a real treat because that was the first time I ever saw the colour of the uniform, not in black and white.

We were sitting in the living room, like most Canadians gather around the TV... (announcer): This is game one from Montreal.

- Everybody, everybody in Russia, at that time, were glued to the TV sets and watching the series.

I knew who was the best in the Soviet Union, but I didn't know who was the best in Canada.

- I was standing on the street, Yonge Street, because I didn't have a television, watching the games in some store front shop.

It was very exciting for us as Canadians to see this.

- I remember the very first game, being in my living room in Chambly with my whole family, and the Russian national anthem started to play.

That was it.

It caught me.

I don't know what it was.

I felt my heart going a mile a minute.

Still to this day, the Russian national anthem is my favourite anthem.

And whenever I hear it at the Olympics or anything like that, I think of '72.

(commentator): There's the official face-off.

- The ceremonial puck drop happens and Phil Esposito is all jacked up.

And gets the puck and fires it down the ice and you know, the Soviet players are... What the hell.

- Ceremonial face-offs are not face-offs to be won.

The dignitary drops the puck.

The puck pretty much sits there.

One of the captains picks it up, hands it to the dignitary, they shake hands and that's the end of it.

- Esposito... he didn't tell us he was going to do it.

But he got out there, he just made sure he won the draw.

He came back to the bench with a smile, a foot wide!

- I was so pumped, I had to win it.

I almost knocked it out of Trudeau's hand.

(laughing) (commentator): And the face-off, and the game is underway with Petrov having cleared it into the Canadian zone.

Canada, clear on the boards... - I was sitting next to Alan Eagleson and he pointed out everything that I was supposed to be watching and telling me quickly all the rules.

And everybody was roaring, it was so exciting.

- I went with my good friend Nick Auf der Maur, a local journalist, to the Toe Blake Tavern, here in Montreal.

Sort of the centre of the universe for downtown people at the time.

And we watched the game there.

(commentator): There's the pass... (indistinct) And score!

- Esposito scored in 30 seconds and we thought, This is all over.

(commentator): Score!

- And then, Henderson scored another goal.

It was two to nothing within just minutes.

And everybody is calculating, so it's going to end up being 4,000 goals to one.

And that sort of thing.

- I can remember like, you know, dancing in the living room, going, "This is going to be easy."

(commentator): ...to the corner.

And he scores!

They finally find the corner of the net.

- Suddenly, there was a pause.

Like, "Oh, the Russians actually scored a goal."

(commentator): Back to Mikhailov, right in the clear!

Right in, he scores!

- And then they scored again.

(commentator): And it's all tied up.

(crowd exclaiming) - And then, the pendulum slowly started to swing the other way.

(commentator): Cutting in, Kharlamov and scores!

- And then it's 3-2.

And then it's 4-2.

- So I began to notice the mood, the faces changing.

I had a big sketchbook, so I just began sketching these guys in different situations.

Getting angrier and angrier.

- The fans, you could just feel it in the arena, everybody was talking, "What's going on here, what's happening?"

I was at the Soviet bench and I was walking around and here was Al coming from the other side.

- I see Gary Smith, the liaison between the Soviet team and us.

So I figure that he has... ...some relationship with me to be on my side.

- I said to him, "Al, what the hell is happening here?

Um... They're... they're... they're beating us."

- I said, "Jesus, Gary, are you a fucking commie?"

This is war!

(commentator): Blinov, comes right back to the Soviets... passes to Mikhailov, coming in on goal... Oh, he scores!

- You can imagine the pressure Alan Eagleson and Harry Sinden were under.

Everything was going wrong.

The great victory was turning into a great defeat.

(commentator): And the game is over!

And the USSR have defeated Canada in the first game.

- And I'll never forget Ken Dryden going off the ice at the end of game one and raising his stick to acknowledge the opposition.

- I felt like a fish on land, I mean, I just felt out of it.

It was an awful experience.

I mean, it was really awful.

- We were all just so amazed at their circling relentless style of offence... Yeah... and we were equally terrified.

- They'll play us in almost every aspect of the game, from goaltending to the shooting, to the skating, passing... We got beat by one fine hockey team.

They showed us... - Harry Sinden was shocked.

He said he had never seen anything like it.

The whole town went quiet.

And the whole country was in total shock.

This couldn't happen.

- At the end of the game, I went along with two officials into the dressing room.

And the word that was said by the Soviet officials to the players was "skaska."

It's a fairy tale.

The Russians thought it was a fairy tale.

They weren't expecting to win 7 to 3.

It was amazing that they had.

- And by the end of that game, hockey in the world changed forever.

(soft music) - We learned the lesson that there's no entitlement.

You're not entitled to think that you're the champion or you're the best without earning it.

That time was an enlightenment for us to understand that there's other people playing hockey.

And that was really a dramatic insight for all Canadians.

- This was the moment where Canada was exposed, and the NHL was exposed as not being all that was advertised.

There was a curiosity.

This is communism at work here.

Is that what's making this team so cohesive?

- Well, my God, what a slap on the face that was.

It woke us all up.

Maybe it wasn't our game.

Maybe it was everyone's game or maybe it was Russia's game even more than it was our game.

- That game-one loss on Saturday September 2nd, 1972, outside of sickness in family over the years, that's the most devastating day in my life.

By far.

- For Canada, I think it was an eye-opener that other people other than Canadians play the game.

And there's certainly a different way how to play it.

(commentator, indistinct) All of a sudden, we're studying what they're doing.

- No one had ever heard of any of the Russian players.

Those names meant nothing to us.

Yakushev, Tretiak.

Not only did Canadians awake to the fact that these people played hockey at a very high level, but they played it differently.

The Canadian game, up to that point, was always to drive straight forward.

Going down the wing, taking that slapshot.

Suddenly, we're looking backwards, they're going in circles, they're passing across the ice.

- The average number of passes for team Canada between the blue line and the goal was one and a half.

(commentator): Carries up to centre ice.

Henderson... - The average for the Soviets was three and a half.

(commentator): The Soviets keep that puck on a string, and the Canadians are going in individually.

- And then all of a sudden, you get a guy like Kharlamov coming across in front of your net at 30 miles/hour, it's very hard to play.

(commentator): Kharlamov, the star of the game so far, going down the left side... - But the real secret was the pause.

No one had ever thought to pause in the middle of taking a shot on goal.

What the Russians would do was they would hold the puck and kept it, and the goalie would move first.

(commentator): Mikhailov keeps the puck.

He walks right into the slot.

- For a while, hockey was a dump and chase game, and the grit and the physicality played a much bigger factor but I think nowadays the type of game that we are seeing being played has a lot to do with what happened in 1972 and how the Russians played the game and that puck possession term that is used so often nowadays, it really started with the Russians.

(commentator, indistinct) (commentator): This is the Soviet puck control.

They want to keep ahold of that puck.

They have good anticipation.

(indistinct) ...that puck a little harder, they would have scored.

- It came about because of Anatoly Tarasov.

- Anatoly Tarasov had built the Soviet system that had won all these World Championships and Olympic gold medals.

- The notion of creating time and space with speed, I believe that coach Tarasov invented that.

(indistinct shouting) To be patient... - Play as unit of five... - Today, hockey is being analyzed more than ever, but when we look at who invented that type of play, you go back to coach Tarasov.

- Anatoly Tarasov found the hockey handbook and came to know Lloyd Percival, Canadian coach.

Lloyd Percival was instrumental in the change and improvement of hockey in the Soviet Union.

- Tarasov gleaned from Percival how important diet was and conditioning was and running was.

And Tarasov ran those Soviet Red Army teams... they'd be ragged... "Once more around, boys."

- They lived in the "baza", which was where they would put the players for 11 months.

And studying and playing hockey every day, like a full-time job.

- These guys used to play soccer.

But they would also do weightlifting.

They would play other sports.

- Vladislav Tretiak, getting up and down on his knees, our goalies never did that.

- They were all-around athletes and their conditioning was superb.

- It opened the eyes for Canadians and Canadian hockey players about how important it was for off-season training, it completely changed the game.

(laughing) - I remember the old days, the long underwear, and these guys coming in.

What I underestimated was the time it would take to get our team to the level it had to be.

We had three weeks, not only to get in shape, but to try to find the players we were going to keep.

- Usually, I would spend a good three or four months getting in shape during the early part of the season.

And really wouldn't hit peak form until the playoffs in the spring.

And now all of a sudden, here they were in the fall having to take on these very fit, very agile and very tough people.

- Another problem was that the two scouts we sent over to the Soviet Union, they saw only one game with the national players.

An intra-squad game.

The night before Tretiak's wedding.

And they went back saying, "Tretiak let in eight goals."

That he was a sieve.

- Whoever did the scouting report that said that they had bad goaltending probably wasn't a very good scout.

That's probably like saying Paul Coffey can't skate.

You probably don't know what you're talking about, right?

- When the series became a reality, I was working for an ad agency in Toronto called Vickers and Vincent.

I was given the responsibility to try and estimate what the audience would be, for the television programming.

One of my responsibilities was to track the audiences for Hockey Night in Canada, so I had a pretty good understanding of the demographics and the size of audiences to hockey.

So I worked the math back and forth and concluded that we probably were gonna get seven or eight million viewers.

Or in some cases maybe even more.

(Hockey Night in Canada theme music) In 1972, Hockey Night in Canada on an average Saturday night, they were maybe a million and a half viewers.

So when we start calculating audiences six or seven million, it gets people wondering if maybe I'm smoking the drapes or something.

How can this possibly be?

(cheering and applause) (commentator): This is Game 2 of the Canada Soviet series from Toronto.

There's a look at the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, his lovely wife on the right-hand side of him.

- Pierre was so proud to be watching hockey.

You know, having Canada represented so well against the Russians.

- Dryden, by all accounts, had a tough time in Montreal.

So Tony Esposito goes into nets.

Tony plays back in nets unlike Kenny, who tended to go forward.

And everybody dug deep on the Canadian side.

(commentator): Canada is pressing hard.

(indistinct) And scores!

Phil Esposito has scored for Canada.

(commentator): Off to centre ice... (loud cheering) Scores!

Cournoyer!

- At two to one, we were trapped in our zone, but Espo gets on the puck, bounces it off the boards, Pete Mahovlich, all arms and legs... (commentator): ...and it's cleared out, it's a race down.

Here's Peter Mahovlich, going in on goal.

Right in!

He scores!

What an effort by Peter Mahovlich!

(indistinct comment) - Toronto fans had been terrified because of what they had seen in Montreal.

And when Peter put that puck in the net, there was just this great outflowing of emotion.

(commentator): Eight seconds left in the game, and the horn is starting to blow... (horn blowing) Lutchenko, coming down with a clear path!

And the game is over!

And Canada has evened the series, 4-1.

- They got their game together and they won.

And things were right with the world, all of a sudden.

(commentator): They all deserve tremendous credit on the performance tonight.

- Everybody was amazed at the quality of hockey.

I think that was something that caught everybody's attention no matter which side you were for and how emotional you were.

Everybody was saying, "Wow, that's really great."

International hockey.

And that was the beginning of the idea that we've got to have more international hockey going on.

This is taking hockey to a whole new level.

(soft music) (echoes of players' voices) - From '72, I learned about Canadian culture.

Just as we learned about Russian culture.

It's all bonded together, the two countries... and this isn't politics.

This is people... ...that have been brought together through a great game.

(echoes of players' voices) - We need athletes, we need those that can reach beyond the boundaries, the differences.

To speak to shared passions that unite us as human beings.

The power of play should never be underestimated.

- I personally was playing against the Soviet teams, it was our embassy team, the Moscow Maple Leafs.

Mainly Canadians, but we had a sprinkling of Swedes and Finns and an American goalkeeper.

And every week, every Saturday, we would go out to outdoor rinks, we would always bring a case of Canadian beer with us, and we'd play and lift a tin of beer afterwards.

And it was a way to improve relations with the Soviets, the Russians.

(bells tolling) There, the embassy on the right.

See the yellow building?

That's where I worked from 1971 till the end of June 1974.

And my office was just up here.

Just before Christmas in 1971, it was a late afternoon when I was reading the government newspaper, "Izvestia".

It was awfully boring because it was about brick production and tractor production and you never knew whether it was true or not and what I started to do was read Izvestia from back to front.

Because the sports were on the back page.

At that time, there was the Izvestia tournament going on... (Russian commentator) ...run by this fellow, Boris Fedosov, who had the nickname The Snowman.

He wrote in the paper, after the Izvestia tournament was done, that it wasn't the same without Canadians and that it was now time for the Soviet Union to play the best Canadians.

He had 6 million readers in the Soviet Union, and when I read that, I jumped up from my desk and went in to see my colleague Hancock and said, "Look at this."

Isn't this a major change?

It's a government newspaper saying this.

They must be serious now if they allow it to be printed.

Because with censorship, they are not just going to allow a journalist to say anything.

And I called The Snowman, on the phone and set up a meeting with him, that launched the diplomatic involvement.

- I remember when my grandfather was still alive, and... we were watching in between periods, Tretiak was interviewed by Johnny Esaw.

- You were sensational in Montreal on Saturday night, and you were even greater tonight.

(Gretzky): And I remember my grandfather sitting there and he'd come over from Belarus, Minsk, so at that time, it was part of the Soviet Union, and he was so proud that he was watching this great Soviet goaltender doing an interview, that he had tears in his eyes.

And I always remember sitting there and going, "Wow, this is pretty cool that, you know, my grandfather could relate to what they were saying."

He defected, went up to Winnipeg, Canada, and met my grandmother, who I just found out was actually from the Ukraine, so we're actually of Ukrainian Russian descent.

And I often think, when I play with Larionov and Fetisov, had my grandfather not defected, would I have been part of that team and part of that whole world?

Who knows, right?

- Game 3 took place in Winnipeg.

The Soviets had a kid line, 20-year-old guys, lots of speed, stamina.

(commentator): ...over at the blue line, intercepted, here's a long shot... he scores!

Here is Canada coming in... scores!

Here's another pass, right in front, scores!

And they tied it up... - The kid line came out and tied it up.

There was no overtime provisions.

So at the end of Winnipeg, we've got one Soviet victory, one Canadian victory and one tie.

Part of team Canada's problem was you did have players from different teams.

- Back in those days, there was not a lot of mixing between the players.

You know, if you were a Montreal Canadian, your best friends weren't with the Boston Bruins or the New York Rangers.

I thought from the start, we should only take 20 guys and work 'em to death.

But Harry was right, you know, "Al, what I want to do is stimulate as much as I can tough opposition.

And the best way we can do that is against NHL players."

- Even though, we have a great deal of respect for each other, we're still opponents and we are still enemies.

You don't just put players together and say, "Okay, be a team."

You know, you have to develop that.

Sometimes it takes two weeks, and sometimes it takes six weeks.

But usually, there's this period of time and that team probably experienced it more than anyone because back then, I think there were really only 12 teams.

They played against each other so much, there's probably so much hatred towards each other... (shouting and whistling) All of a sudden, you're all in the same locker room.

And then you're getting players that are mad because they are not dressing for a game, then you've got other players that are mad because they are not playing as much as they think they should play.

- Back to Vancouver, the series gain tremendous interest by the public and in the media.

And from the business community.

People are all of a sudden seeing, "This is a bonanza."

(commentator): Off the board... (indistinct) - We were charging about 15,000$ for a minute.

Hockey night in Canada would've been priced in the $ 1,500 to $ 2,000 range for a 60-second commercial.

(commentator): Over the line... (crowd shouting) Stopped by Tretiak.

- It was like the Superbowl.

Nothing had ever been charged like that.

(crickets chirping) - We were up in Dawson Creek, I was nine, I was riding my bike on this dusty road just kinda in front of our farm.

And I could hear a truck coming.

And there's my dad and uncle in this truck and I'm thinking they are going to go by, but they stop, they stop their vehicle, my uncle jumps out, he grabs my bike and throws it in the back of the truck.

He grabs me and throws me in the front of the truck and goes, "Come on, dear, there's a hockey game to watch."

Off we go, and we head straight to the house, and turn on the TV and they start watching hockey.

(muffled hockey commentator) - And it's just very strange because I could go days without seeing my dad because it's harvest.

My mum would make meals and take them out to the field.

And have them eat there because they weren't going to stop.

And yet here they are, leaving the machines dead in that field, not running.

And they're sitting there watching hockey.

And it blew my little mind.

It was so different than anything I had ever seen before.

(commentator): ...passes back on the boards.

- They wouldn't stop for weddings, funerals, births... You better not have a baby during harvest.

And here they were, stopping the machines to watch hockey.

(commentator): This is the rubber game of the series with each team winning one game and tying the other.

Brian, for Canada, they've inserted eight new players; they've switched goalies... - In game 4 in Vancouver, the players'd come out, and there was booing.

Initially, we thought the booing was for the Soviets.

And I never even contemplated that it was for Team Canada.

(commentator): ...going in, number 9, stopped over by Goldsworthy, and he hits with the elbow again... Mikhailov took it on the head.

- Bill Goldsworthy was back in the lineup.

Good hockey player, but hot-headed.

First ten minutes he had two penalties, they had two power-play goals, we learned, I thought, in game one, you can't give these guys the extra minute.

(commentator, indistinct) (commentator): ...scores!

Lutchenko getting a shot, he scores!

And the Soviets have taken a 2-0 lead.

The Soviet power play is devastating, the penalties are going to cost you.

- They started to get ahead.

A couple of the Canadian players were reverting to rough stuff.

(crowd exclaiming) The crowd started to react a bit, saying, well, you know, why are you going to rough stuff when you should be out there scoring goals?

Match them on goal scoring.

(commentator, indistinct) (commentator): And he went in the net, but the puck stayed out.

- Team Canada, by the time we got to the third period, down 5-2.

So they started to really make a noise... And then Tretiak came out of his net to clear a puck and Frank Mahovlich in effect sat on him, he straddled him, didn't let Tretiak move.

(commentator): Tretiak is being held on that last play by Mahovlich.

- It wasn't just a second, it was ten seconds or more... The crowd really reacted to that.

Because they thought: This is not sportsmanlike, it's not the way to win a game, we can't shoot the puck past Tretiak so you're going to sit on him.

(commentator): There's the siren as it goes to end the game.

And the USSR have defeated Canada in the rubber game, 5-3.

- A lot of hopes rested on Vancouver, and that turned to be a disaster.

I mean, here we were down now two games to one with one tie, and we were gonna face the Russians a week or so later, in their building.

- For the people across Canada, we tried, we did our best and for the people that boo us, jeez, I'm... I'm really... all of us guys are really disheartened and we're disillusioned, and we're disappointed in some of the people, we cannot believe the bad press we've got, uh, the booing we've gotten in our own buildings.

- Esposito's speech was unusual in any measure, because players didn't normally talk like that.

You're supposed to show humility in defeat, but it really told people how much it did mean to the players too, that they weren't failing Canada because they weren't up to it, they were failing Canada, supposedly, because the Russians were a hell of a good hockey team.

- Doesn't mean that we're not giving it our 150%, because we certainly are.

- Well, the Esposito speech was really phenomenal.

It wasn't planned, you can't plan something like that, that's something that you speak from your heart and you got this belief that... you can ignite not only your teammates but the people in the country, and I think that it really did that, it hit every sort of notch that there was.

- Every one of us guys, 35 guys that came out and played for Team Canada, we did it because we love our country, and not for any other reason.

No other reason.

They can throw the money for the pension fund out the window, they can throw anything they want out the window.

We came because we love Canada.

And even though we play in the United States and we earn money in the United States, Canada is still our home and that's the only reason we come, and I don't think it's fair that we should be booed.

- What was at stake was so important to both countries, and the players felt that emotion.

- I remember saying to the guys I was playing hockey with, "Does this mean that the Russians are gonna come over and coach us?

Does this mean our hockey is going to change because we're losing to these Russians?"

Me and my friends, we were just... mortified, petrified, angered, disillusioned, at what was happening.

- The media were kinda responsible for that, you know, us, the good guys versus the bad guys.

Somebody said, "It's the bad hockey players playing for the good country and the good hockey players playing for the bad country?

What... what is this?"

(soft music) - In terms of the globalization of the game, 1972 opened the door for North American hockey to be able to see what Russia, Europe, all of the different countries have to offer.

The different styles.

It completely changed the game, and I think it changed the game for the better.

- The fans had given up.

After that game in Vancouver, 75-80% of Canadians thought the series was over and we'd lost, and were furious at the players.

(commentator): The second half of this series will resume in Moscow; Team Canada will go to Stockholm, Sweden first, play two games there before moving on to Moscow.

- They were all suffering status anxiety.

You saw them coming apart at the seams emotionally, at a lot of levels.

(royal march playing) - The best thing that we did was getting that 5-6 days in Sweden against a lot of objections.

I said, "Harry, we've gotta get accustomed to that big ice surface."

- You have to remember that European players and Soviet players, they trained primarily on Olympic ice surface.

- Boston Garden and the Buffalo Aud and Chicago Stadium, they were extremely small ice facilities, and then you're going over and you're playing on this international arena.

It's almost like you go from an ice rink to a soccer field.

- The two games against the Swedes turned into donnybrooks.

- There were fights and brawls, and the Swedes really turned on them and injured them and called them ugly and they got castigated there as being dirty players.

And there was a lot of blood spilt.

Cashmen took I think fifty stitches on his tongue.

- The Swedish media, they had always been against the Canadians because of their Canadian style of hockey, you know, that we were a bunch of brutes, and we came over there, and we intimated and beat up, we didn't know how to play the game.

And they were playing at that time a very skilled game, but it wasn't a rugged game.

- And then Harry had this dilemma, we've got our backs against the wall here, I can't afford to be a good guy now, I don't need 35 players.

I need 20 players that can go out there and win four hockey games.

And he had to make those tough decisions.

- There was dissension in the Canadian ranks.

There's no doubt.

The team that Sinden was forming left people like Vic Hadfield and some of the others out of the mix.

- I told Harry what I was going to do.

"I want everybody on the team, before we get on the bus to go to the airport..." I said, "We're in a very leaky boat in tough seas, and we all have to row home to safety.

We can't afford to be hitting each other over the head with our paddles.

So either get in the boat, get your paddle, and if you're in now, you stay in.

Otherwise, get out now."

- And some of the players left the team because they said they weren't playing.

And they did that once they got to Moscow.

- Meanwhile, there were 2,700 Canadians bound for Russia without a clue what the society was like.

There was all this mystery too about what was Russia.

- I had never travelled outside to Europe at all, and certainly not to the Iron Curtain.

It was a little scary, a little intimidating because, of course, you never heard anything good about Russia.

I was 20 and I worked at the Westbury Hotel in Toronto, I was assistant to the Director of Sales.

A flyer came into the office, and it was just on a piece of paper, and it had Canada Russia series, trip to Moscow and it had the phone number on the bottom, so I called them right away, I said, "Can I get a ticket?"

They said, "Yes, how many?"

And I said, "Well, just one, just me."

(laughing) My parents, they weren't very happy with me.

My mom just said, "That's not something a girl your age does, by herself."

All my friends thought I was crazy.

They said, "Why do you want to go there?"

But I said, "Well, it's an experience of a lifetime.

So I'm going to go."

And off I went.

(laughing) - I had only been into business for five years I guess.

Suddenly, out of the blue, I get this call about a big international story and would I like to illustrate it, I'm like, "Wow, you don't even have to pay me."

(laughing) Well, no, they had to pay me, it was just a dream come true.

I had travelled quite a bit before then, throughout Europe, and so I wasn't a stranger to that aspect of it but suddenly being confronted with Moscow and the Russian ways of doing things, was fascinating.

I think the reality of where I was really hit me when we landed at the airport in Moscow.

A lot of joking went on, it was phenomenal.

- Don't grab it.

I've had this for 5,000 miles!

- Then walking with a bunch of drunken Canadians with baseball caps and cowboy hats, this isn't a cartoon, this is real.

So we're in Moscow, we're ready for the hockey, but we're uncertain.

Everybody is uncertain, nervously cheering, right?

But we're in their territory now, what's going to happen?

(soft music) (echoes of crowd cheering) - Ooh, la la la... Ah...!

(crowd cheering) (commentator) This international hockey match between Team Canada and the Soviet Union is declared open.

(commentator, indistinct) (commentator 2): Right off the bat... Stapleton was hosed down, a hooking penalty... - This is exactly as it was in 1972.

(soft music) (crowd chanting) - Whoo, whoo, whoo... - Luzhniki stadium was a solemn-looking place, you know, long grey rows of people, all dressed in suits and ties.

- As my wife said, whoever had the franchise on sad faces and brown coats and grey suits, because it was a very dull crowd.

- Leonid Brezhnev was in the house.

(commentator): And Leonid Brezhnev the head of the Communist Party.

We have not shown him to you, because our cameramen ar hesitant to take pictures of him when it is a non-state occasion.

- And the place was ringed with security.

The Red Army was a force on the team, but I'll tell you, they were a bigger force in the stadium.

They were everywhere.

And in the middle of this, were these 2,700 crazy Canucks, yelling and screaming.

(crowd chanting) (commentator): The Team Canada rooters over here came up with a new cheer, Foster.

It's called "Da, da, Canada, niet, niet, Soviet."

- I kept saying to myself, "Da, da, Canada!"

- Niet, niet, Soviet!

And this thing filled the arena to the point the stalled Russians would look around and think: My God, who are these people?

And how do they get away with this?

And here were these people with no reference whatsoever, yelling and screaming.

The Soviets, their big chant was "Shy boo, shy boo..." - Shy boo!

Shy boo!

- ...which was "the puck", uh, kind of an inanimate yell.

(chuckling) - You know, when the Russians didn't like something, they whistled.

In contrast to the Canadians who would boo or cheer.

The Canadians had their own special section.

The colour differences between, you know, all this red and white... ...and then polite Russian people, brown-grey hat and coats.

That was a sketch I was very happy to do.

(announcer, in Russian) - Phil Esposito!

- Espo was out introduced game 5 and he falls, trips and falls on the floor, and then he had the incredible wherewithal to laugh at himself and milk the moment a little bit with a famous bow.

(commentator): Well, let's hope that's not the story of our trip to Moscow.

- He was just such a tone setter throughout the series.

(commentator): ...going to centre ice, number 10.

- The first couple of periods, they were doing pretty well.

(commentator): ...still loose.

Finally, the Soviets recover goes back to Kharlamov to centre ice, down at the blue line... A long pass, is knocked down, recovered by Canada, Clarke makes a long pas to Henderson, he's in the clear, right to the goalie, and he scores!

Clarke.

A beautiful Canada play by Clarke.

(commentator): He scores!

And he scores!

And he scores!

And scores!

- So they were conditioned to play for 70 minutes and they only had to play for 60.

It didn't matter how much you were leading by, you were never home safe against them.

- They were just so disciplined to win like that, so I thought it was over.

(commentator) ...down to 60 minutes, and then, they put a lot of goals.

And Canada right now has their backs against the wall.

- We lose 5-4; instead of booing, as the fans did in Vancouver, they got a standing ovation and cheering.

(cheering) - For me personally, I think for a lot of people, even though we had lost the game, they came away with a lot of optimism.

I don't think anybody was despondent, I think they were uplifted by that game.

We felt the tide had turned somehow.

(Canadian fans cheering) - There were postcards and letters pouring in; we brought them over from the embassy and the postal services and they all went up on the wall.

All of sudden here Team Canada has got a bunch of fans who really appreciate them and all these expressions of love coming from Canada.

- We had 10,000 telegrams that were taped to the hallway to our dressing room.

You couldn't see one piece of concrete for all these telegrams.

- The whole country was behind one team.

It was always Montreal against Toronto, or Detroit or Chicago.

So that was the first time that all the fans got together behind one team.

(muffled cheering) (cheering) - Hockey is full of elegance and brutal, and there's a tremendous Canadian vanity around hockey.

We're the polite good soldier, except when we step on the ice, then we're the warrior and it's very much a flip flop of the Canadian personality.

(rock music) (commentator, indistinct) (commentator): ...and they'r really hitting each other hard.

(commentator): ...to Kharlamov, knocks him down, and makes sure he stays down.

(commentator): Phil Esposito is saying plenty to the Soviet players.

- One of the big things in game 6 was the two-hander by Bobby Clarke on Valery Kharlamov.

(commentator): The Soviets mov to the attack at centre ice... - Bobby Clarke swung his stick over his head and broke his ankle, like a woodsman cutting down an oak tree.

- It's dirty, it's dirty hockey.

Do you want to win because you were dirty, or do you want to win because you were the best?

(commentator, indistinct) (commentator): And scores!

- It became evident for the first time in the series that the Soviets did not appear to have the ability to close out the deal.

And all of sudden, here's a team that they can't quite put away.

And the momentum started to change after game 6.

- We got stronger as the series went on, we were skating more quickly, or at least as quickly as the Soviets, once we got to Russia.

(commentator, indistinct) And the players, they were the soldiers on the front line, so they sure felt we were in a war.

(commentator): ...can't believe it.

Down on that ice, it's just pure war.

These two teams are going at it.

- Harry and I have really stimulated that feeling.

Their only friends there were themselves.

And that was the gel that started to pull the team together.

- I told everybody, the rooms will be bugged.

Your phones will ring in the middle of the night, so when you go to bed at night, pull the phone because otherwise, they are going to call you.

The players ignored it the first couple of nights, then they found out the hard way because they couldn't get any sleep.

- For the 10 days that I was in Moscow, I was followed by a member of the KGB.

They're as close as you as 10, 15, 20 feet.

And for the first couple of days, I was intimidated.

I didn't know what to think.

But I finally concluded that if I keep my nose clean and just go about my business, I'm gonna be just fine, thank you.

But every night, I felt I needed to taunt them a little so I when I was going off to sleep I would, you know, sing them a lullaby or wish them good night or something knowing full well that they had listening devices in my room.

- Let me tell you a story that I don't even think is true.

But it was a very common story whispered around about how Esposito, and Frank Mahovlich was very paranoid about the Russians, were in a hotel room, and they were determined to find the bug in the room.

So they crawled around and Frank found the bug, in the centre of a rug, he found a bump and he pulled it back and sure enough, there's a wire and he cut it.

And the chandelier in the room down below fell... (laughter) (commentator): ...Canadian team, after a slow start, have shown definite improvement on each game so far.

- When they went into game 7, Team Canada had the momentum.

They had to win, but in some respect, so did the Soviets.

- The Soviets, their style was very, very kind of team focused, the coach would never refer to a player as having played a good game, he'd say, "the winger played well" or "this defenceman had a good game".

It was kind of a lack of individuality.

- Team Canada is made up of individuals.

And individualism was what shifted the whole series.

And the person that personified that the best was Phil Esposito.

(commentator): Esposito is playing magnificent hockey so far in this series... - Phil Esposito carried Team Canada on his shoulders.

He was the glue.

He was the leader.

He was the heart and soul of that team.

(commentator): He fakes the shot, turns... There's gonna be a penalty call here.

Esposito shoots... scores!

Esposito fired that puck and the score's tied up again.

Esposito... - The bigger ice now was supposed to be a huge advantage to the Soviets, but it was a great advantage to Paul Henderson.

The guys who could fly welcomed the larger ice surface.

(commentator): ...to Henderson shoots!

Oh, that was close.

- Paul Henderson is focused, he was on a mission.

- Paul Henderson didn't have very high recognition factor when the series started.

But it grew and grew.

The one thing he had over anybody on our team was his speed.

Paul Henderson used that series to elevate his recognition factor and to elevate our team.

(commentator): Henderson... he scores!

Henderson!

- I felt myself going down and when I looked up, there was only one place to put it and that was right under the bar.

And boy, it went under the bar... When I watch the replay today, I mean, if there's any one goal that I could sit there and watch for two hours, it's that goal I scored on the seventh game.

- Never give up, you cannot relax against Canada, against professional hockey players.

The game is not over yet until it's over.

That's the lesson and that's what Paul Henderson's goal shows.

(commentator): ...Henderson makes a beautiful move on this goal.

- And they came back, and that was the beginning of something really superhuman.

(commentato): And now Canada takes the lead 4-3... - When you take a look at the '72 series, you know that every single one of those guys left it out there.

(commentator): ...takes that puck in front of the net.

- No matter what championships or whenever you play for your country, that's always the message, you have nothing, nothing to keep inside, you have to leave everything that you possibly have out on the ice.

- It was that kind of bloody determination that got the Canadians to game 8 with the chance to win.

(epic music) - From the outside world, to what people think of Canada one of the first things they think of is the hockey players.

And Team Canada.

It's an unselfish, hard-working group that's committed to working together as a team.

And that's what we want our nation to be.

We want to be one, we want to work together as a group, as a people.

We want to get along.

We want to be unselfish.

We want to help each other.

- Hockey in Canada, it's living proof that sports has the power to unify people.

It's a nation-building process.

I've seen that in my life, through and throughout.

Whether it was when I was a child growing up in a small town in southern Alberta or as a broadcaster with Hockey Night in Canada in Punjabi and how that brought the community and other Canadians, all of us, together.

It validates us as Canadian.

(commentator, indistinct) (cheering) - I'm very emotional here, because I played many years here.

Many, many years.

50 years ago, 50 years ago, against Team Canada.

Two great teams.

I played many, four Olympic games, 13 World Championships, but '72, the best, the best hockey I play.

(commentator, indistinct) (commentator): Canada coming back.

Cournoyer, Mahovlich, and the shot, grabbed by Tretiak.

- Thank you, the Canadians think you're wonderful, thank you very much.

- Game 8 almost never happened.

The issue of referees had been plaguing the series, particularly in the Soviet Union.

Two West German referees had called a bunch of penalties on Team Canada.

Harry decided that he didn't like them, that they were incompetent.

- We had 19 minutes of penalties to their three, or something like that.

They were bad, but they were worst for us than they were for the Russians.

- Harry said, we're not going to play if the West Germans referee.

- We want the Czech and the Swede.

We've decided, we've talked about it with our team, we can go home with enough pride, the series is tied as far as we're concerned.

- But they were so many ramifications if we had quit the game.

Not only would we have lost the series, we would have been seen as bad losers, and we were gonna have 3,000 Canadian fans stranded in Moscow.

So I found myself in the small room with Harry, John Ferguson, Al Michelson and two Russian officials, both of whom were KGB officers.

- And then that's when the fun began.

- It went back and forth and back and forth.

- No Germans, yes to Germans, you're not telling us what to do.

The arguments went on for hours.

So I said, what if we each pick one referee.

So Harry says, "We'll take the Swede."

Dahlberg.

And the Russians say, "We'll take the West German, Kompalla."

- The morning of the final game, "Well, you can't have Dahlberg, because he's sick."

I said, "I had breakfast at the table beside him this morning.

He looked in good health to me!

- You know, Dahlberg bailed out on us under Soviet political pressure.

So Harry went to the Czechoslovak referee, Bat'a.

(commentator): The air in the Moscow Arena here is tense as we get ready for this eighth and final game of the series.

(cheering) They go into the final game all tied up, so if you've been writing the script, you couldn't have produced a more dramatic and exciting final.

Tonight, we're making hockey history, and the teams and fans are really up for this one.

(commentator): So Foster it's no longer an 8-game series, it's down to a one-game series.

(Canadian national anthem) (chuckling) (cheering) - I was a child, I wasn't even 10 years old, but the excitement permeated everywhere.

I absolutely remember being crowded into the gym, being shushed by the teachers, and of course looking at a very small screen TV at that time but 200 kids... captivated.

It was one of those moments that you remember your whole life.

(commentator): This is game 8 of the Canada Soviet series from Moscow.

- Of course, that scene repeated itself all across Canada.

(loud cheering) - Schools shut down, the country came to a grinding halt.

- I just think Canada's gonna win.

- Well, I voted for Canada for many years, ever since I knew them.

- I remember the whole sense of mystery, the strobing, the blackouts, the images were sketchy, the sound was as though coming from the moon.

- Sometimes we thought that we were gonna lose the picture altogether.

I remember being there with my friends in my living room going, "We're gonna lose this game, we're not gonna be able to see it."

We had a radio waiting in the background.

- The pressures of the expectations again of, not only hockey, but it was communism versus capitalism and I can tell you, every one of us felt it.

Every one of us felt it.

(commentator): Phil Esposito at the centre, Cournoyer on the right, as the puck is dropped and shot up to the line.

- The game got off to a pretty rocky start.

(commentator): ...pass.

He's knocked over by... It'll be a penalty there.

- The West-German referee called a penalty that the Canadians felt was not a penalty.

(commentator): Parise... getting his penalty.

- Jean Parise was even more adamant.

He went totally ballistic.

I'd never seen anything like it.

He stepped out of the penny box, he started waving his stick around and pounding the ice with his stick and then at one point, he charged over to the side of the net with his stick raised, and looked like he was gonna hit the ref in the head.

With that, he was gone, understandably, for 10 minutes, for misconduct.

(commentator): The ruling i that Parise is out of the game.

- And then, all hell broke loose.

(commentator): Lot of gesticulation here.

Harry Sinden threw a bench or something out on the ice, and somebody else threw a chair.

- It took them 10 minutes to settle the teams down.

And after that, the Soviets started to get ahead.

(commentator): ...still has it on that far side, passes back on the board, and a tic-tac-toe passing.

Vasiliev is gonna take a shot... There'll be another penalty on the play, he shoots, he scores!

- After two periods, the Soviets are up 5-3 and there's not much hope there.

- I was talking to Soviet official Alexander Greshko and said, "Well, you know, what if this game ends in a tie, that means this series will be 3-3 and 2."

Nice diplomatic solution, it's a tie across the board.

And he said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

If it ends in a tie, we win."

The rules of the IIHF are: if it ends in a tie, the team that has the most goals wins the series.

And they had one goal more than Team Canada.

So I told that to Al.

- We gotta beat these guys, but we can't just tie them and if we're gonna go down, let's go down and give them all we've got, I don't give a shit what you do.

(commentator): ...pass to the far wing.

Phil Esposito going in on that left side, he shoots.

Tretiak is parked in front of the net.

And he went down on his knees... - I wanted to win.

I knew I didn't have total control over it.

But I had some control, and I got myself to a fever pitch, and that's all I thought about was the game, the game, the game.

(commentator): Peter Mahovlich coming down the right wing.

- The Canadians really pressed the attack; it was that sense of desperation you see sometimes in a Stanley Cup playoff today.

It was that kind of intensity.

They just did not relent.

(commentator, indistinct): ...and scores!

Esposito... - And then, Esposito scored, Cournoyer scored.

(commentator): ...he shoots, oh, right in front of the net.

Esposito back... Here's another shot by Cournoyer, he scores!

Canada has tied it up!

The Canadian team grabbing each other there, as the loose puck went around the net.

- I see that we've got a goal, but the goal light doesn't go on.

I know that the goal judge happens to be Viktor Dombrovsky, a Russian referee!

He's afraid to turn on the light in case they send him to Siberia.

- I don't know what possessed Eagleson, he got crazed I guess and he stormed the time keeper.

- All I planned to do was go over that 10 feet and tell the announcer, "Announce the goal!"

- As he would have at any rink in the world, you know, the authorities grabbed him.

- One's got me this way and the other that way, and the next thing I know is I'm getting punched and pushed.

(commentator): Now we see a fight break out!

- Well with that, Peter Mahovlich falls over the boards.

(commentator): Alan Eagleson is in on it over there, as far as we can tell.

- The players descended on the scene, with their sticks being used as spears and liberated Eagleson, hulled him out of the clutches of the Soviet authorities and carried him across the ice.

It was an unbelievable display.

(commentator): Apparently, uh, the police were trying to throw Eagleson out.

And that's when the reserve from the Canadian team came over there to help out.

- I don't think the Russians have any idea what the hell we were doing.

I don't think we knew what we were doing.

They had guns, we had hockey sticks.

(commentator): A goal was given to Cournoyer, from Esposito and Clarke.

- Phil Esposito calls a time-out and gathers the other five players.

(commentator): Canadian tea went into a huddle there, which seems to be a little unusual.

- Five Montreal Canadians and Phil Esposito plotting what they're gonna do.

(commentator): The next goal will be the key one.

- This is less than two minutes to go and there's no Henderson in that huddle, he's not on the ice at this point.

Peter Mahovlich is on the ice.

The play starts, Mahovlich leads a rush.

(commentator): The puck comes up at centre ice.

- Henderson has got some premonition, or he's got some... something tells him, "I want to get on."

He yells, "Peter!

Peter!"

And Peter gets off the ice and he jumps on.

There's seconds left.

- Everybody else, all the other Canadian photographers, George Kreek, Frank Lennon, were down at the other end, focused on Tretiak, hoping to get a shot at a Canadian goal.

But I'm focused on Dryden, thinking the Russians are gonna pull it off.

(commentator): 1:02 left in the game.

Here's a pass on the far side.

Liapkin rolled one to Savard.

Savard... (all): Go, Canada, go!

- ...to Cournoyer.

Cournoyer trips and... (commentator): Here's a shot!

Henderson made a wild... (commentator): Here's another shot, and he scores!

- Henderson scores for Canada!

(cheering) (commentator): Henderson, right-hand part of the net!

- And the fans and the crowd are going wild!

- Henderson qui se relève derrière le filet, se ramène devant le filet et pousse la rondelle et le but!

(game description in Punjabi) (commentator, indistinct) - They have played eight games to that point.

The whole series is tied and it ends with 34 seconds left to go.

And it was just... you couldn't write it.

(commentator): A long shot by Gusev... Dryden plays it at the back of the goal, Gusev... The game is over!

And Canada has won the series.

They defeated the Soviets 6-5 in a really hard-fought battle here.

- We are forever young, we are forever... Henderson leaping into the arms of Yvan Cournoyer.

An English-Canadian leaping into the arms of a French-Canadian.

(commentator): And they fought like tigers tonight.

- How perfect is that?

(cheering) - '72 changed our national identity, anytime a Canadian entity in sports, primarily hockey, but not just exclusively hockey, makes a significant comeback, you can point it back to the Summit Series of '72 when we refused to lose.

That started a national identity of never giving up.

Look at how many times our juniors have done it, look at how many times our women have done it.

Countless times, the ladies on the biggest stage have come back to win.

(scratching of a pen) Mountains are pretty easy to draw.

(chuckling) I really wanted to get Cournoyer in on this, because he was the 3rd star, there's no question about it.

I've been drawing long enough that I can draw pretty well anything, but it's the ideas, to keep coming up with the ideas.

(commentator): Henderson made a wild backwards fall.

Here's another shot, and scores!

Henderson!

- That photograph was just so iconic and Frank Lennon got it, boom.

It's a part of Canadian folklore.

- The first time I put on a Team Canada jersey was so special.

There's no feeling like it, there's nothing better.

On the Olympic swim team and you wear the Team Canada cap, or if you're in the Paralympics and you're wearing the jersey in a wheelchair, it's the greatest feeling in the world because you know one thing, that every Canadian is rooting for you to be successful.

(echoes of cheering and applause) - We really do need to keep putting these world events out there for the young kids to say, "Hey, I can be that."

We have to create dreams.

The dreams come from the head, but they also come from the heart.

(epic music) - The '72 hockey series, what it did politically was it increased our profile in the Soviet Union, it was detente and building bridges.

Now the Russians know something about Canadians.

And even today, with Vladimir Putin and his war, hockey remains a very important link with Russia.

(soft music) - I just love everything about the fact that our country was a railroad, brought it from one coast to the other.

And I could see the parallel of the two steel blades, like the rails.

(epic music) It's just this weird lucky metaphor, two blades and that sheet of ice.

(music swelling) Hockey, it's a great sport.

If you want to teach your child resilience... ...and collaboration... the '72 series is the ultimate example.

That whole experience, it's such a great window into the human condition.

(music fades) Subtitling: difuze