(When politician Ken Dryden met the Times Colonist editorial board in 2008, he wanted to talk about poverty reduction, but the grey-haired journalists just wanted to ask about how it felt to race down the ice after the goal.) OK, maybe the place of Henderson’s goal has been overstated, its importance exaggerated by a bunch of oldsters who first viewed it through the rose-tinted lenses of their own youth. If there’s a Soviet citizen who sees us as anything but a mindless, vicious, crybaby people he can’t have been watching that little screen.” ![]() It will be years, if ever, before we can live down the shame. Victoria Mayor Peter Pollen called it “disgraceful” and councillor Mike Young declared it “deplorable.”Ĭolumnist Jack Scott wrote: “I have never seen sportsmanship at a lower level than it was throughout this series by the Canadian players. Some were upset about our team’s boorish behaviour. Then he scored the winning goal and, for that one moment, all of Canada seemed to stop and cheer this smalltown Ontario boy.” OK, maybe not all of Canada. “I was a huge Maple Leafs fan at the time, so I was happy to see Paul Henderson playing for Canada. “I remember the game vividly,” he said Tuesday. Today’s premier, John Horgan, watched in the same way as a gazillion other Canadian kids that morning: glued to a TV set in the school gym, in his case Saanich’s Reynolds Secondary. Now Canada has done it but they had better get out of town before it starts snowing,” he enthused after the game. “The French couldn’t do it, the Germans couldn’t do it. The premier of the day, New Democrat Dave Barrett, joined reporters watching the game in the legislature press gallery, and jumped for joy when the puck went in and the Russians fell. The Victoria Times managed to rush the news into that afternoon’s edition, where it shared the front page with a story about Asian refugees landing in Canada after being driven from Uganda by despot Idi Amin. Henderson, a Toronto Maple Leaf who hadn’t been expected to play a prominent role, scored the winner in each of the final three games, including that legendary last-minute marker, and the country went nuts. Maybe it’s because this was at the height of the Cold War, and at a time when the notion of hockey as key to Canada’s identity was more than a Timmy’s commercial, but people took it seriously. Then they won game five, too.Ĭanada was on suicide watch. The Soviet roster was dotted with the same names - Mikhailov, Kharlamov, Petrov, a young Vladislav Tretiak in net - who had lost 5-1 to a team of Canadian amateurs at Victoria’s Memorial Arena in 1969.Įxcept the series began with a 7-3 blow-out loss to the visitors in the Montreal Forum, which was kind of like the Pope losing in the Vatican.īy the time play shifted to Moscow, the Soviets led two games to one, with one tie. Sure, the Soviets had dominated international play for years, but they had never faced the pros. in an eight-game series - four in Canada, four in Moscow - that we expected to win in a walk. The background: In 1972, for the first time, the country’s best NHL players met the U.S.S.R. ![]() It transcended sport, was a generational benchmark: People remember where they were when Henderson scored in the same way they remember where they were on VE Day, when JFK was shot, when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, or on 9/11. No, winning the summit series was more like winning an axe fight. It sure wasn’t some feel-good Disney movie like the Americans’ Miracle on Ice in 1980. Not Sid the Kid’s golden goal at the Vancouver Olympics, not Gretzky-to-Lemieux in 1987, not “Touch ’em all, Joe” Carter’s homer for the Blue Jays in 1993. When Paul Henderson scored the winner with 34 seconds left in the final game, 50 years ago today, it wasn’t like Canada’s other big sports moments. ![]() What you need to understand about the Canada-Russia series, Junior, is it was about way more than hockey. They score! Henderson has scored for Canada! Here’s a shot! Henderson made a wild stab for it and fell.
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