Golden goal: Team Canada players reflect on 50th anniversary of Summit Series

Memories may fade as one gets older, but every Canadian hockey fan of a certain vintage can probably still recite Foster Hewitt’s words from Sept. 28, 1972.

“Here’s a shot. Henderson made a wild stab for it and fell,” Hewitt told viewers of Game 8 of the Summit Series from Moscow’s Luzhniki Ice Palace. “Here’s another shot. Right in front, they score! Henderson has scored for Canada!”

Paul Henderson’s goal, with 34 seconds left in the third period, lifted Team Canada to a 6-5 victory over the Soviet Union in the final game of the series. Canada won the series four games to three with one tie in a sequence of games many consider the greatest in hockey history.

“It was so memorable that people don’t want to forget it,” Dennis Hull, a member of the Canadian team, told Jamie Nye and Drew Remenda on the Green Zone. “When you do something the first time, it’s always the very best.”

Another member of the team, Peter Mahovlich, remembered how high tensions around the series were because of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the western world.

“It wasn’t a very great experience in that regard, other than the fact that, when we look at it now, we all think it was perhaps one of the most moving sports moments in all of history,” he told Nye and Remenda.

Paul Henderson and members of Team Canada from the 1972 Summit Series are honoured in the House of Commons on Sept. 22, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

Henderson is considered a hero by many Canadian hockey fans, and not just because he scored the series winner in Game 8. Then a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Henderson also scored the game-winners in Canada’s 3-2 win in Game 6 and its 4-3 victory in Game 7.

“I never in one moment ever thought that I would score goals like that; we had 12 Hall of Famers on that team,” Henderson told the Roy Green Show.

“The old story goes, you never know when opportunity is going to knock. The secret is to take advantage of it – and brother, I took advantage of that one.”

The series starts in Canada

At the time, NHL players had never faced players from the Soviet Union, so the eight-game series was highly anticipated.

Former NHL stars like Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull and Gerry Cheevers weren’t eligible for the series because they were playing in the World Hockey Association, but most observers didn’t think those players would be needed.

“We had been told by the Toronto scouts who had seen (the Soviets) play that it’d be a walkover and everyone would get a chance to play,” Dennis Hull said. “We found out that wasn’t true in Montreal.”

Mahovlich said the Canadians realized in the first period of the first game – played in the Montreal Forum on Sept. 2 – that they were in for a tough battle.

“We were up 2-0 in the first five minutes and (it was like), ‘This is going to be a laugher,’’’ Mahovlich said. “All of a sudden, it’s 7-3 for them, and that laugher turned into something serious.”

The Canadians tied the series with a 4-1 victory Sept. 4 in Toronto before the teams played to a 4-4 draw Sept. 6 in Winnipeg.

On Sept. 8, the Soviets won 5-3 in Vancouver – and Canadian fans booed the home team off the ice. That led to an impassioned post-game interview by Phil Esposito, who wasn’t pleased with the fans’ reactions.

“We did not know about (Esposito’s outburst) until after,” Hull recalled. “He was the heart and soul of the team. I know Henderson got all the big goals, but Phil is a folk hero in Russia.”

The series shifts to Russia

After a few days off, the Canadians travelled to Sweden for a pair of exhibition games, then continued on to Moscow. By that time, a roster that started with 40 players had been whittled down to 18 skaters and two goalies.

“We were getting on the plane to Moscow and I said to (head coach) Harry Sinden, ‘Harry, we’re really in tough now, aren’t we?’ ” Hull said. “He said, ‘No, we’re not. You know why? Because we’re a team now,’ and boy, he was right on there.”

The Soviets won the fifth game 5-4 on Sept. 22, but Mahovlich recalled the 3,000 Canadian fans in the Luzhniki Ice Palace doing something the Russians couldn’t understand – but the members of Team Canada sure did.

“We went off the ice and they started singing ‘O Canada,’ ” Mahovlich told Nye and Remenda, his voice cracking 50 years later. “You cannot believe the emotion that was involved as we went off the ice.”

Despite the emotional pick-me-up, Team Canada trailed the series 3-1-1 and needed three straight victories to win it.

“I said to (my wife) Eleanor, ‘If we don’t win the last three games, we’re going to be known as the biggest losers in the history of Canadian hockey,’ ” Henderson said. “We all believed it and knew it.

“Of course, we won (games) 6 and 7. By this time, we really were fairly confident. We were starting to get in shape. We knew who was going to play, and so we went into the last game with a lot of confidence and felt good about it.”

‘Henderson has scored for Canada’

After the Canadian wins on Sept. 24 and Sept. 26, the final game was set for Sept. 28.

“Before the game, we got a telegram with 20,000 signatures on it,” Hull remembered. “We left Canada like black sheep, so we finally realized that Canada was behind us. That was nice to know.”

The Russians built a 5-3 lead through two periods of Game 8, but goals by Esposito and Yvan Cournoyer tied the score.

Late in the period, Henderson and his linemates were on the bench, while Mahovlich’s line was on the ice.

“At the one-minute mark, I did something I never did before,” Henderson said. “Something within me (said) ‘I’ve got to get on the ice. We need to score a goal,’ and I started yelling at Peter Mahovlich, the left winger.

“Fortunately, Peter came off, I jumped over the boards, and that’s how it happened.”

Henderson fell as he went to the net, but he got up, went back in front, got a shot on Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak and then banged in the rebound.

Thirty-four seconds later, Canada had won the series. Hull remembered sitting in the dressing room after the game beside Cournoyer, who had won multiple NHL titles with the Montreal Canadiens.

“I said to Yvan, ‘Is this like winning the Stanley Cup?’ He said, ‘You don’t know? No, this is 10 times better than the Stanley Cup,’ ” said Hull, who hadn’t won an NHL championship. “And I said, ‘OK, I’ve got 10 Stanley Cups,’ and he said, ‘Show me the rings.’ ’’

In the 50 years that have elapsed since the Summit Series, people have clamoured for Henderson to be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame for his heroics.

Now 79, Henderson – who already is an inductee in Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame, the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada – said everybody has an opinion on the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“If they put me in, I won’t turn them down,” he told Green, “but nobody will be ticked off anymore, including you, and you’ll forget all about me. So I’m a lot better on the outside.”