In Sportsnet magazine’s latest digital issue, The 25 Greatest NHL Games of All Time (it’s free!), five of our insiders recall the greatest hockey game they’ve ever witnessed. Here, Jeff Marek remembers Canada’s triumph at the 1987 Canada Cup.
In 1986, I was 16 years old and my mother passed away. She died of brain cancer in August of that year. I didn’t want to do anything. I was obviously depressed, I’m a young man, I lose my mom. It was awful. But then 1987 came and it was almost as if 1987 was saying to me, “It’s gonna be OK.”
I’d loved hockey my whole life, and 1987 gave me the Stanley Cup final, which was a great one between the Oilers and the Flyers. We had Rendez-vous ’87 that year, which was a great series against the Soviets. There was the Easter Epic, which is still one of the greatest hockey games I’ve ever seen on television. And then there was the 1987 Canada Cup, which to me was the greatest tournament ever played. I was lucky enough to get tickets to the final game between Canada and the Soviets—game three at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. I’ve never been in a louder building and I’ve never been involved in something as euphoric as when Mario Lemieux scored that goal on the assist from Wayne Gretzky on one of the most famous rushes of all time.
I was there with my buddy Keith. I’m sure I was dressed in hoser chic with jeans and Kodiak boots. [Laughs] Neither of us was dressed up in Team Canada garb. Mind you, we had really bad seats. There was no chance of us actually getting on TV. We were both humongous hockey fans and neither of us could really believe that we were at the game. We’d been to tons of games together, but at this one you felt like you were gonna be part of history. When Canada staged that comeback after going down in the first period, you realized that this is gonna be something you’re going to talk about the rest of your life. There was a certain point in the game when Keith and I sorta looked at each other, and I think one of us said, “This is gonna be one of the most famous games of all time, isn’t it?” There was Henderson ’72, Sittler ’76, and there was Mario ’87.
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Early on in the game it was such a downer. It was like the wind got sucked out of there. And then as the comeback started, the crowd came along with it and became another player. One of the most interesting moments—and I always flash back to this, -one of those moments where you really feel like a coach is playing a gut instinct-—occurred right before the Lemieux goal. It’s on the faceoff in Canada’s zone. Mark Messier was lined up to take the draw and [Canadian coach] Mike Keenan waves Messier off and sends Dale Hawerchuk over the boards to take the faceoff. Even as a 17-year-old, I remember saying to myself, “Holy smokes, that’s enormous.” Hang on, Mike Keenan is pulling Mark Messier off the ice for the faceoff? I mean, I talked to Mike years and years later and he told me what went into that decision, how good of a faceoff man Hawerchuk was, et cetera, et cetera. But I remember thinking to myself at that time, this may be one of the most controversial moments. I mean, what if Hawerchuk loses the draw and Russia scores? How much will that move be scrutinized?
There’s so many things on that final play that I still marvel at looking back all these years later. Keenan pulling Messier off and putting Hawerchuk in, the Hawerchuk hook, the Gretzky pass—which is a symbolic passing of the torch from the Gretzky Era to the Lemieux Era—and then Larry Murphy very quietly making a brilliant play that forces the netminder not to cheat on Lemieux and play the shooter too aggressively. It’s a brilliant bit of hockey.
It was pure euphoria after that goal. It was complete joy. The interesting part about it was it was almost exactly a year to when my mother passed away. So I had gone from the lowest of lows in my life to the highest of highs inside of 12 months. In a lot of ways 1987 was kind of like therapy for me, and the ’87 Canada Cup was like my therapist finally putting his or her finishing touches on me. It really helped me embrace this game that I had loved my entire life. Whenever I look at hockey seasons I always ask if it compares to 1987. That’s always been the measure for me. And so far, the answer’s been no.—As told to Kristina Rutherford
Illustration by Jacqui Oakley
