The Russians are winning

The greatest hockey team ever assembled? Ask the question of a Canadian and the candidates are so familiar, the possible answers so obvious, that you only need the year to know the story: 1972, 1976, 1984, 1987, 1991, 2002, 2004, 2010.

Say no more. All of those were all-star teams assembled under the maple leaf, facing and defeating the best in the hockey world, winning famous victories, making us feel secure in the belief that the national game was indeed still ours.

But how about 1981? Jog any memories?

Canada Cup final? Montreal Forum? Them 8. Us 1. Didn’t think so.

This year, Canadians will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summit Series, an event forever etched in Baby Boomer memories, so count on the familiar orgy of sentimentalism, flag waving and nostalgia. Paul Henderson, etc., etc.

Meanwhile, the 30th anniversary of what may well be the best hockey team ever passed in 2011 completely unnoticed -- not just in Canada, where we have always tended towards amnesia when it comes to our less glorious moments on ice, but in the former Soviet Union as well, where that particular Big Red Machine has somehow been lost in the shuffle. In an attempt to reclaim its place in history, a Russian film crew came to Canada last year to interview Al Eagleson, among others, and produced a feature-length documentary about the forgotten side, entitled Red September.

Russian fans, it seems, prefer to recall the 1984 Olympic gold medallists as their ne plus ultra, a team that went 8-0 in what was then a round robin tournament, and outscored opponents 52–6. They valued the Olympics and the World Championships, even minus NHL pros, over made-up tournaments played on the small North American ice designed to tip the competitive balance in favour of the home team.

In fact, for the first Canada Cup in 1976, remembered fondly here as a reprise of 1972 and Bobby Orr’s great swan song, the Soviets left some of their best players at home.

By 1981, though, they were no longer quite so indifferent. A year earlier at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, what was essentially the same team that had hammered the NHL stars in the final game of the 1979 Challenge Cup in Quebec City had been humiliated by a group of nobody Americans, the so-called Miracle On Ice. The Soviets arrived for the 1981 Canada Cup still smarting from that loss, with a lineup that featured a familiar face or two from the past -- most notably goaltender Vladislav Tretiak -- along with a new generation of stars, including the great KLM line of Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov, and the brilliant defenceman Slava Fetisov.

The Soviets also arrived with heavy hearts. Five days before the start of the tournament, Valeri Kharlamov, arguably the greatest Russian player of them all, had died in a car accident at 33. He had been knocked out of the ’72 Series by Bobby Clarke’s infamous slash, and missed 1976 because of injuries suffered in another crash. Honouring his memory, the Russians later said, was part of their motivation.

Canada countered with a young team made up of the core parts of the then-dominant New York Islanders, plus Guy Lafleur, and a still wet-behind-the-ears Wayne Gretzky, who would finish as the tournament’s top scorer. Goaltending was an issue after Billy Smith broke a finger during training camp. Money was an issue as well: banned from Maple Leaf Gardens because of Toronto owner Harold Ballard’s antipathy towards the commies, it was a scramble to sell tickets and sponsorships. “There just didn’t seem to be the same excitement that there was in ’76,” Eagleson remembers.

Canada had its golden moment: a 7–3 win over the Soviets in the meaningless final game of the preliminary round. But in the final, after a scoreless first period, the pride of the USSR asserted itself, leading 3–1 after two, and then rolling over a listless Canadian team in the third period to complete the rout. Canada had only four shots in the final 20 minutes.

Afterwards, the Russians tried to stuff the trophy in one of their equipment bags and take it home before Eagleson jumped in to stop them (it still bears the dent from being dropped in the melee). So disheartened were the Canadian players that at a reception the next day with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, only two -- Gretzky and Larry Robinson -- showed up.

A pretty good story there, especially if you happen to be Russian. A unique piece of hockey lore that stacks up with any of those celebrated Canadian victories. And it was hardly a one-shot -- the Soviets’ reign continued until the semi-final of the next Canada Cup in 1984. There, after dominating the early stages of the tournament, they were upset in overtime by a Canadian team -- featuring the best of the Edmonton Oilers -- which went on to beat Sweden for the title and make everything right with the world.

We remember that one, oddly enough.