Game 3 revisited: ’72 Summit Series Tour preps for Winnipeg stop

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/08/2016 (3638 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ever hear the story about the Big M’s big, KGB-inspired meltdown in downtown Winnipeg?

It was early September 1972 and Team Canada had just settled for a 4-4 tie with the Russians at the Winnipeg Arena in Game 3 of the eight-game Summit Series.

Frank (Big M) Mahovlich and a few of his teammates were making their way from a local watering hole to their hotel and had to take a dark back alley to get there. That’s when paranoia got the better of him.

‘We have been so honoured as a group of hockey players by Canada. We know what it meant to Canadians when we won, and what it still means to people’– Pat Stapleton 

“This is a story that nobody would know,” Brad Park recalled Tuesday. “We’re here in Winnipeg and we go and have a couple of beers and we’re going through this alley. Frank’s checking all of the doors. He thinks we’re being watched behind every door. He says, ‘Russian spies are back there.’”

The ’72 series between Team Canada and the Soviet national squad is one of the most well-known sporting moments in our country’s history: four contests were played in Canada, with the final four held in Moscow.

There’s been plenty said and written about the Cold War-era series, which culminated with Paul Henderson’s electrifying goal in the eighth and final game, but so many more stories haven’t been available for public consumption — until now.

Many of the heroes of Team Canada are coming to Winnipeg Sept. 6 as part of the ’72 Summit Series Tour, billed as “An evening with Canada’s ‘Team of the Century.’” It comes exactly 44 years to the day after lesser lights Yuri Lebedev and Alexander Bodunov each scored late in the second period to lift the Soviets into a 4-4 tie in Winnipeg.

A pair of blue-liners from that team, Park and Pat Stapleton, dropped by the city a few weeks early to drum up support for the ’72 Summit Series Tour, set for 8 p.m. at the Centennial Concert Hall. Although the official roster for the Winnipeg stop (one of four on the tour) hasn’t been confirmed, expect to see Stapleton and Park along with the likes of Phil Esposito, Serge Savard, Ken Dryden, Bob Clarke, Rod Gilbert and Yvan Cournoyer.

Unfortunately, health issues will likely keep Henderson home.

Stapleton said for Mahovlich, the son of Croatian immigrants, the series was about so much more than just hockey.

“He came from a family that suffered in eastern Europe and it was all very emotional for Mahovlich. Frank was a basket case the entire time,” he said.

It would later turn out some of Mahovlich’s paranoia was justified. When Team Canada got to Moscow, all of its money, jewelry and possessions were inventoried by Russian officials, over fear the Canadians would sell their belongings on the black market.

Stapleton said the idea for the tour came up about four years ago as a way to help cement the team’s legacy.

He said a case study was done at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., confirming Canada’s victory over the Soviets was so significant efforts needed to be made to preserve its history.

A board of directors was formed, including Park, Stapleton, Dryden, Savard, Esposito, Team Canada coach Harry Sinden and John Ferguson Jr., the son of the late John Ferguson, who served as the team’s assistant coach. 

The group came up with a mandate of entertainment, education and fundraising — holding its first banquet, with speeches from team members, in October 2014 in St. Catharines.

Now, the tour focuses more on interaction with the people who buy tickets.

“It’s a way to give back to Canada,” said Stapleton, who possesses the puck Henderson swatted behind Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak to clinch the series. “We have been so honoured as a group of hockey players by Canada. We know what it meant to Canadians when we won, and what it still means to people.”

Park said the team was made up of players from 10 different NHL squads, and they really didn’t know each other.

A three-week training camp in Toronto helped them get ready physically, but mentally they weren’t at all prepared for what was to come.

Canada got hammered 7-3 in the series opener in Montreal on Sept. 2.

“In Game 1, mentally we weren’t into it. We went in thinking it was an exhibition series and got our asses handed us,” Park said. “We made some changes and we go into Game 2 (in Toronto) and we have a different psyche. We’re embarrassed and our psyche now is, ‘We’re going to punish you guys. You think you can do that?’ So, we were definitely into it then.”

Canada won Game 2 by a 4-1 count.

The hosts would gain a tie in Winnipeg but lose 5-3 in Vancouver — the final contest on Canadian ice — where fans at the Pacific Coliseum booed the club’s performance, prompting Esposito to address a nation and vent his frustration in a post-game interview.

It was a rallying cry, of sorts, and has been credited with sparking the squad to victory. In reality, the players had no clue it had happened.

“We never heard it, we never saw it. We left Canada and didn’t even know about it,” said Park.

Added Stapleton: “But it was a rallying point for the fans, for Canada. And by the time we got to Moscow, the postcards and the letters and the telegrams were waiting for us in barrels. We knew they were behind us.”

Canada lost Game 5 in Moscow but then posted three consecutive one-goal victories, capped off with “Henderson has scored for Canada!” and a 6-5 win in Game 8 to take the series 4-3-1.

Park said he never tires of hearing what the triumph still means to people.

“We know we became part of peoples’ lives,” Park said. “People come up to me and say, ‘My mother’s a Toronto fan, my father’s a Montreal fan and I’m a Boston fan’ and it goes in one ear and out the other. But when they talk about ’72 and where they were and what they were doing and how good it made them feel, that’s special.”

Tickets are available for the ’72 Summit Series Tour at ticketmaster.ca. Prices range from $72 to $177, and there are some VIP packages available as well. 

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter@WFPJasonBell