For 27 memorable days in September of 1972, the Cold War literally took to the ice as the NHL’s best Canadian-born players (such as Phil Esposito, Yvan Cournoyer, Serge Savard, and Frank Mahovlich) faced off in an eight-game series against a team made up of the Soviet Union’s best players, who were responsible for a then-recent rash of Olympic ice hockey gold medals and world hockey championships.
This was not going to be your run-of-the-mill series of exhibition games. What was up for grabs was national pride, and bragging rights for world hockey supremacy … a sport that was born and developed in Canada.
From training camp to Paul Henderson’s iconic series-winning goal during game 8 in Moscow, the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series was one of those “where-were-you?” events that forever changed the game of hockey around the world in general and the NHL in particular.
To mark this golden anniversary, the CBC will present a four-part original documentary series called “Summit 72”, which begins airing on CBC Television on September 14 at 8 p.m. (and streaming the following day on CBC Gem), with the three subsequent parts airing each Wednesday night on September 21, 28 and October 5.
According to Robert MacAskill, the series’ co-write and co-director, Team Canada entered the Summit Series mindset with a great deal of overconfidence and hubris. “The sense of overconfidence on behalf of Team Canada was universally known. And then there was that sense of hubris of ‘we are the NHL stars; who could be better than us?’, he said during a recent phone interview. “One of the legacies that came about from the 1972 series was that you should never underestimate your opponent, because your opponent can be capable of beating you. And the Canadian press fed that sense of hubris, especially Red Fisher of the Gazette and Dick Beddoes of the Globe and Mail, who later had to eat his column in a bowl of borscht after a promise he made that he would do that if the Russians won a single game.”
“Fans were completely awestruck by what happened in game 1 at the Forum. Team Canada started things off by scoring two goals almost immediately after the opening faceoff. And then the Russians answered back by scoring seven goals. It was a collective shock. We found out that the Russians had a clear sense that they knew how to play hockey and play it differently,” he added.
What makes the “Summit 72” series such a fascinating viewing experience is that MacAskill and his crew used a great deal of resources to help tell the complete story of the Summit Series to viewers, whether they watched the games in person or on TV as it happened, or were not even born at that time. They decided to use 16mm archival footage (in which most of it was never seen before by a viewing audience) that was restored in 4K high resolution, including actual play-by-play broadcasts and rare footage of the Russian team going through their rigorous daily physical training and conditioning routines. They also conducted current interviews with surviving members of both teams – such as Phil Esposito, Paul Henderson, Peter Mahovlich, Vladislav Tretiak, Alexander Yakushev and Boris Mikhailov — as well as interviews with current hockey stars whose careers were affected by the legacies of 1972.
“The CBC wanted to do something different when it came to retelling the story of the Summit Series, and that was by telling the stories that have never come to the surface,” said MacAskill. “They wanted to bring that story to Canadians who were not yet born at that time, and who didn’t know its seminal moments. The goal of the documentary series was to revisit it and show how fundamentally important it was to international hockey from the Canadian and Russian points-of-view, and how it affected our culture; in fact, the series kind of influenced the path to perestroika that was initiated by Gorbachev 15 years later.”
When principal photography began last year, the crew faced many challenges; the biggest one being the COVID pandemic. “That was a huge problem for us. We didn’t have the collective experience of working together for such a large project that we could have had. Instead, we had to settle for countless online meetings, or working in person in only small groups,” said MacAskill. “And when we were set to go to Moscow on December 21 to interview the Russian players was the day when the Omicron variant struck. Instead, we had to hire crews and journalists to conduct those interviews for us. Putting the series together was a tremendous challenge, but it was an effort that was filled with time, dedication and persistence.”
Although Team Canada stumbled through the Canadian leg of the Summit Series (one win, two losses and a tie), there were several defining moments that signaled the turnaround for the team that culminated with Paul Henderson’s historic winning goal in game 8. “It’s difficult to isolate just one defining seminal moment towards Team Canada’s turnaround. But if I had to choose one, it would be game 2 at Maple Leaf Gardens,” said MacAskill. “That was a very important game, because if Team Canada would have lost that game, the series would never have recovered. I would also add Phil Esposito’s interview with Johnny Esaw right after losing game 4 in Vancouver. It was an important point in time, and had he not done that interview, it would have been difficult for Team Canada to get the needed traction to rebound. It also won the hearts and minds of the fans, which resulted in a delegation of more than 3000 Canadians attending the games in Moscow. As well, it helped to create a stronger sense of bonding amongst the players, like ‘all we have now is ourselves’.”
Fifty years have passed since those 27 days in September of 1972. MacAskill believes that the legacy of the Summit Series can be summed up in one word: discoveries. “Whether you were a hockey fan in Canada or the Soviet Union, the 1972 Summit Series had you discover something that you didn’t know before,” he said. “It wasn’t just the big bad commies versus the big bad capitalist pigs, but a discovery that each side had an awful lot in common with each other, and that opposed cultures can be unified into something special. It was a unique point in time.”
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