44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 22, 2022 10:00AM
- Sep/22/22 3:25:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, everyone loves a good comeback story, especially one that united our whole country. Quite frankly, the level of unanimity in this House today is a nice thing to see too.
Fifty years ago, before the Summit Series had even started, a lot of sportswriters and hockey fans were predicting an easy win for Team Canada. At the time, a journalist at The Globe and Mail famously promised that if the Soviets won a single game, he would eat his own column shredded in a bowl of borscht. It did not take long for him to eat his words, literally. There is even a picture of it.
The first game took place at the Montreal Forum on September 2, 1972. Canada lost 7-3. In the days and weeks that followed, our team had its ups and downs. After losing game five in Moscow, our backs were up against the wall. If we wanted to win the series, we had to win the last three games in a row. It was quite a challenge. The players kept up their training, the coaches refined their strategies, and Canadians did not lose hope.
In game six, after a scoreless first period, Canada finally produces a 3-2 victory. In game seven, Phil Esposito scores the first two goals and Canada wins 4-3, and then game eight.
It is the final game of the series. With just one minute left to play, the score is 5-5. That is when Paul Henderson jumps onto the ice.
Henderson rushes to the net. He falls. He gets back up. Team Canada takes two rebound shots and, with 34 seconds to go, Henderson flips in a shot to the goalie's left. They could hear the cheers from coast to coast to coast.
Everyone remembers where they were. Everyone except me, because I was only nine months old. However, I remember growing up with players like Yvan Cournoyer and Ken Dryden as heroes. I am even wearing my Habs socks today. They were not only heroes because they had won the series. They were all heroes because they taught us a lesson. They showed us how grit and hard work pays off. They showed us that, even when there is only 34 seconds left to play, one never gives up. In a global example, they showed us that having a hard-fought competition on ice can go a long way, even for diplomacy.
Paul Henderson once told the story of a friend calling him when the Berlin Wall fell, saying that after his famous goal in 1972 the Soviets probably never recovered. I will let experts debate on whether there is any truth to that, but what is absolutely true is that the Summit Series was a defining moment in the history of our country.
In 1972, our flag, the maple leaf, was only seven years old. Not all Canadians had embraced our flag at that point. As Serge Savard often pointed out, after our players won while wearing the maple leaf on their jerseys, Canadians became proud of this symbol, which still represents us today. It is a symbol of peace, democracy and freedom.
Our world is a different place today than it was during the Cold War, but there are parallels. One thing remains the same: We will never stop fighting for what is right.
Today, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summit Series and all the members of this historic team, let us remember the best of who we are as Canadians. Let us continue our work to make sure people, young and old, players and fans, can be part of this extraordinary sport in a safe and respectful environment. Let us keep reminding the world that being polite and friendly never precludes our also being tough and determined. Let us remember that, with hope and hard work, there is nothing we cannot overcome.
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- Sep/22/22 3:31:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what an honour it is to have the legendary heroes of the Summit Series among us today.
It is an honour to welcome to the House today members of Team Canada for the 50-year anniversary of their victory over the Soviet national team in the 1972 Summit Series.
It was the year 1972 that the Cold War spilled into the world of sports. In July, American and world chess champion Bobby Fischer had defeated the Soviet champion and number two world competitor Boris Spassky. In the Munich Olympics, the American basketball team lost a bitter and still-contested gold medal game against the Soviet Union.
However, neither of these events produced the drama or the lasting glory that the Summit Series did. The series pitted, for the first time, the best Canadian professionals, though some of them looked too young to have been there, against the Soviet players who were, at the time, underestimated but preparing quietly for a surprise. It was to be a true test of hockey supremacy, played under the shadow of a much deadlier contest for global supremacy.
The Canadian Department of External Affairs suggested that the encounter could be called a “friendship series”. Thank goodness the players ignored that and had the good sense to compete fiercely. Although most commentators and most Canadians expected the series to be an easy one, after a shocking 7-3 loss in game one in Montreal, it became clear that the series would not be a friendly exhibition of Canada's superiority.
As the losses mounted, the pressure on our players grew, the low point being the series' game four in Vancouver when some of the crowd rained boos down on their defeated heroes. Canadians simply could not understand how these NHL all-stars, these legendary names they knew so well, could be outscored by a team of Russian amateurs.
The Canadian fans had not yet realized what had become clear to the Canadian players: These Russians were actually really good. They were playing a different game than the NHL players were used to. It was a game of speed and finesse, of long-lead breakout passes and pinpoint cross-ice accuracy.
By the end of the series, the names of those faceless Russians would be household names in Canada. We know them now. We knew them then and now many of them play in the leagues on this side of the ocean, or at least their children and grandchildren do. They have names and faces Canadians would come to know and respect in international tournaments and in exhibitions pitting Soviets against NHL competitors.
By the time the Canadian team left to train in Europe ahead of the four games in Moscow, the idea of a “friendship series” was long dead. From this side of the Cold War, knowing how it ends, we can afford to look back objectively, but in the moment, and at that time, the series had become, to borrow the name of the 40th anniversary documentary, the Cold War on Ice.
The 1972 series was the first time the term “Team Canada” was applied to a Canadian hockey team. In the minds of Canadians and fans following the series around the world, and on both sides of the Iron Curtain, Team Canada versus Team Russia had become us versus them. There were two styles, two different ways of life and two fundamentally incompatible ideologies and systems of government. It was democracy versus totalitarianism, communism versus free enterprise and freedom versus repression.
Clichés never tell the whole story, but they often tell the most important part. This is true of the stories we are told today of the 1972 series. Before the series, we told ourselves that we were the best hockey country in the world and that our way of playing was the only way to play properly.
During the series, we realized that this was not quite true. For having lost those four games and having seen the competitive grit and the finesse of a team of a different style, we learned that we needed to up our game. In the last game on home ice, the frustration of Canadian fans in Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum erupted as boos rained down from the bleachers. Team Canada lost, falling 4-2.
In a now iconic post-game interview, the legendary Phil Esposito pleaded with Canadians. To quote the elder Esposito brother, he said he was completely disappointed and he could not believe it. He said, “Some of our guys are really down in the dumps...We know we’re trying...They’ve got a good team and let’s face facts. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not giving it our 150 per cent, because we...are. Every one of us guys, 35 guys, came out to play for Team Canada. We did it because we love our country”.
On foreign ice, in front of hostile fans, with their backs against the wall, down two games, Team Canada rallied to win the last three games, each by a single goal. Each of those winning goals was scored by the great Paul Henderson. His name is immortalized in Foster Hewitt's frantic play-by-play call that erupted through hundreds of thousands or probably millions of televisions and radios in classrooms and workplaces across the country: “Henderson has scored”, and the crowd goes wild.
The ladies and gentlemen in the audience would not have been so pleased of course, but those here on the other side of the world would have applauded and cheered with such a vibrating and powerful force that it would have been heard all around the globe. It is a call that still thrills us all half a century later, even those of us who were born after 1972. We have only heard the echo of those cheers but still revel in the legacy they represent. When we hear those calls and we see those names, the names of those who are here today, Yvan Cournoyer, after the winning goal, for example, it takes us back to a different time and a different world.
It was 17 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just a few months before the wall fell in May of 1989, a 20-year-old Alexander Mogilny would become the first Soviet star to defect to the west to play in the NHL. He was charged with deserting the Soviet Red Army, in which he was nominally an officer. Shortly after that, a crumbling and cash-strapped Soviet hockey system and Soviet Union would come crashing down as well. Two years after that, in 1991, the Soviet Union, which in 1972 had appeared almost invincible, officially came to an end. I say almost invincible because this Team Canada showed that they were anything but.
That is something the Canadian spirit brings alive in hockey, but also in all aspects of our lives. I think what is so special about the gentlemen gathered here today is that every single Canadian can see their own triumph in this legendary win. They have made us all proud. They have given us one of the defining moments of Canadian history. In fact, I think if any Canadian were asked to close their eyes and dream up the most Canadian moment, it would be hard to think of anything more Canadian than the '72 Summit series victory.
Therefore, on behalf of all Canadians I wish them a great congratulations and thank them for their contributions to our national story. May we all live up to their incredible example of grit, determination and victory.
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