GAME EIGHT
From Russia with Glory
By DAN PROUDFOOT
Globe and Mail reporter
Friday, September 29, 1972
MOSCOW - Paul Henderson's winning goal yesterday with 24 seconds left in the game on which international hockey prestige was balanced, completed an incredible comeback by Team Canada and left the place of sports, Lenin Central Stadium, echoing to O'Canada.
When the Canadian fans, more than 2,500 of them, finished with the anthem, they started the chant, "We're number one." The final score was 6-5 for the Canadians and a series victory of four wins, three losses and a tie.
Inside the Team Canada dressing room, there was a feeling of frantic pride. Not a lot of noise, no victory champagne, just a team of proud men making assertive statements.
"It was the biggest thrill of my career to be named to this team," said Henderson, the left-winger who has skated for four years with Toronto Maple Leafs to modest reviews. "The next biggest thrill was to make the team.
"And now, three winning goals in a row. Who can believe it?"
Henderson's arrival on the ice for the goal-front pass from Esposito that won the series remains a mystery to some extent.
The Leaf winger was on the bench when he saw the final minute ticking off on the Palace timeclock. "I don't know what it was maybe a feeling, but I yelled to Harry [manager-coach Sinden] and asked him who was on the next shift. I as much as asked him to go. He said 'Ratelle.'
"And then he turned around and said, 'you go on.'
"Peter Mahovlich was skating by and I said, 'Peter, how are you?' Peter just said, 'Get on' and I did."
Henderson found himself in front of Russian goaltender Vladislav Tretiak and in a scramble he fell down. He got up, he got in front again, and Esposito's centring pass arrived.
"I left him on," said Peter Mahovlich, "because he told me to get off, he was going to score a bleeping goal." Peter Mahovlich has a strong sense of humor.
Team Canada came to Moscow with a losing record of one win, two losses and a tie.
In the first game here, Team Canada blew a three-goal lead and lost 5-4. But the Canadians won the three final Moscow meetings to take the eight-game series and each time Henderson scored the winner.
Last night Team Canada never led until it went ahead 6-5 in the final minute. Four times the Russians were ahead but the National Hockey League selects kept coming back. The Russians had the beautiful plays, the Canadians had the grim determination and the startling efforts of such individuals as Phil Esposito, who scored twice and figured in all three goals of the third period comeback.
Henderson and Esposito complete the series as the top scorers with seven goals each.
At the end of the game, Henderson's lawyer Alan Eagleson was yelling again as after the previous game at Leafs owner Harold Ballard. "This has to be worth $25,000. Harold!" shouted Eagleson, who is seeking bonuses for both Henderson and his Leafs line-mate Ron Ellis on the basis of their play for Team Canada.
"Sure, let's give Henderson $50,000," said Ballard later, "or why not $150,000, make it three, make it a million, heh, heh?
"The guy who really started things on the third period was Esposito. He's the super of supers, I would say."
The impact of the goal on the fans was share by Canadian goaltender Ken Dryden, who saw it clearly from the far end of the ice. "I saw the puck sitting there in front and I thought somehow, at the last season, someone would knock it away. Fortunately, nobody did."
Dryden skated the length of the ice to congratulate Henderson. He said he doesn't remember ever making such a long congratulatory skate. Nor does he remember a win meaning so much.
John Ferguson, assistant coach, said: "I've been through Stanley Cups but they were for Quebec, and this was for Canada."
An ugly incident threatened briefly after Yvan Cournoyer tied the score at 5-5 and the red light failed to go on behind the Soviet goal.
The head of the NHL Player's Association, Eagleson, jumped from his seat as if to protest and landed on two of two unsuspecting Soviet policemen.
A crowd of police was on him in no time and the Canadian players lined the edge of the rink to berate the police for their action. The police withdrew once the incident was explained.
The game was emotional, for players and fans, from the fifth minute when Jean Paul Parise was penalized two minutes for interference, and given a 10-minute misconduct for banging his stick on the ice and a game misconduct for threatening referee Josef Kompalla with his stick.
Kompalla was one of two referees from West Germany Team Canada attempted to keep out of the final game. Team Canada officials thought that Russian Ice Hockey Federation officials agreed Kompalla and Franz Baader would be replaced by Rudi Batja of Czechoslovakia and Uve Dahlberg of Sweden.
But Wednesday, the Russians insisted Baader and Kompalla officiate the last game, and only a threat by Team Canada that it would leave before submitting to "Baader and Vorst" resulted in the compromise of Kompalla and Batja.
"I was so mad I didn't know what I was doing," said Parise. "How could he call me for interference when the guy I was hitting had the puck? If anything, I thought he was going to call me for cross-checking."
With the announcement of Parise's game misconduct, a small bench soared on to the ice from behind Team Canada's boards, courtesy of Coach Sinden. Trainer John Foristall then threw a chair. The fans, convinced Team Canada was in for a night of penalties, chanted "Let's go home."
Eagleson paced from the opposite side of the arena to the Team Canada bench. "Don't try to make anything of that," said Sinden. "No way we were going to leave the game. It's just we warned them [the Russian hockey officials] this would happen if they brought in the German officials, and he came to remind me."
After Eagleson's visit, the Team Canada bench calmed down and within two minutes Phil Esposito knocked in Brad Park's rebound for a power-play goal and a 1-1 tie.
The Soviet Nationals had gone ahead 1-0 on a power-play goal by Alexander Yakushev with two Canadians in the penalty box.
Vladimir Lutchenko's shot from the point gave the Russians a 2-1 lead on another powerplay, but Park converted Ratelle's pass for a tie at the end of the first period.
Vladimir Shadrin's goal made the score 3-2 after 21 seconds of the second period, and opened a portion of the game in which Team Canada seemed destined to lose. The Shadrin score would have left lesser goaltenders than Dryden shaken, for it came on a rebound off the netting above the backboards.
Yakushev shot hard and high, and the puck hit the trampoline-like netting when serves the same function as the plexiglass at Maple Leaf Gardens. "I had watched how pucks bounce in practice," said Dryden, "but I never saw one bounced back like this. The first I saw was when it bounced by me .
"I spread out to cover as much as I could, but I didn't spread enough."
Tony Esposito, the goaltender in Team Canada's games against the Russians when Dryden hasn't played, stepped up to Dryden in the dressing room. "Hey, don't blame yourself on that one. I never thought if it not being glass back there."
Bill White deflected Rod Gilbert's shot to even the score again midway through the second period, but less than a minute later Yakushev made it 4-3. It was another goal in the moral-crumpling category, for Dryden had just made a superb stop on Boris Mikhailov, sliding on front of the shot in time with Yuri Blinov's pass.
Off the subsequent faceoff to Dryden's left, Vladimer Shadrin passed to Yakushev. "Phil [Esposito] won the faceoff," said Dryden, "so our guys were pulling out when a Russian manager to slap the puck over to Yakushev."
The home-team went ahead by two goals on powerplays late in the second period. Pat Stapleton was serving two minutes for cross-checking and Kompalla had called a delayed penalty on Gary Bergman when Valeri Vasiliev scored the final Russian goal.
"Nothing out of the ordinary was said between the second and third periods," said Esposito. "What was I thinking? I was thinking one goal would get us going."
Early in that final period, Esposito was in front of Tretiak for Peter Mahovlich's pass out. He gloved it, a foot off the ice, and took one whack at the puck and scored with the second.
Defenceman Victor Kuzkin earned an entry in assistant-coach Boris Kulagin's notebook for his negligence.
"That was the goal we needed," said Dryden, "one in the first 10 minutes. It meant we didn't have to take chances. We could work with the knowledge we're capable of scoring at any time."
Tretiak was prone on the ice 10 minutes later when Yvan Cournoyer tied the score from a scramble. Another 6-1/2 minutes passed before Henderson made the winning goal and gave the Canadians a special midnight in Moscow.
Esposito left as the outstanding Canadian player; on the same level as the persistent, overwhelming Yakushev. Esposito not only scored four points, he saved a goal when the Russians led 4-3 by sliding into the crease when Dryden was beaten. He led the Canadians with an effort that left his jersey soaked with perspiration.
And while Eagleson raved about the Soviet Union being a two-bit country not worth a nickel, Esposito said the Russians had been a hell of a team. Nancy Eagleson, the Godfather's wife, said "Freedom always wins, freedom always wins."
Somebody asked where Bobby Orr had been. The best player of the NHL not only missed the series with a sore knee, he missed the final game completely. "I don't think B.O. was here," said Wayne Cashman, another Team Canada player sidelined by an injury. "He got too emotional watching the earlier games and I think he stayed at the hotel to watch this one on television."
|
Headline Index
Breaking News
All times are ET.
