How did a game become a war?
At its beginning, few saw the Summit Series as anything more than a working vacation for Canada's hockey pros. Everyone, including the Soviets, agreed on a few likely outcomes: Phil Esposito and the boys would politely embarrass the Communists; the Soviets, dominant in international hockey for a decade, would treat it as a learning experience; diplomats would tout the matches as a kind of cultural exchange that could thaw the Cold War.
In dozens of interviews, the figures who planned it and played it gave a minute-by-minute account of how the Summit Series unfolded.
The Globe and Mail's Patrick White describes the journey back to the 1972 Summit Series
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