Gold, Blood Pressure, and Shades of ‘72

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure how many more international hockey games like last Sunday’s unbelievably tense blast in Vancouver this old fan can take before the medics are called in – and maybe the boys in the white coats as well. Why is it that these games are almost always so close, so tight, with the outcome a matter of nano seconds and extreme heroics? Why can’t we have nice, comfortable blowouts like the schmooze against the Russians last Wednesday (and you knew that our boys would find a way to stretch out the tension two days later against the Slovaks – one goal down with a few seconds to go? Why? Just to torture us more?) I, like tens of thousands of other Canadians, knew deep in my hockey bones that a 2 – 1 lead midway through the third period on Sunday wouldn’t be enough, that a third goal would be essential to avoid overtime. And sure enough, the tie happened. Granted, we got the gold in the end, due in no small part to Jerome Iginla’s otherworldly hearing: Iginla couldn’t even see Sidney Crosby when he heard the highpitched cry of Crosby’s super-urgent “Iggy, Iggy” and sent the puck unerringly onto the Kid’s stick, who, genius that he is, instantly with one snap of his wrists beat the depressingly brilliant Ryan Miller and sent the country into a complete screaming fit. But it was always thus. In the 1972 “Summit Series” with the Soviet Union, with the exception of the second game at Maple Leaf Gardens, Canada seemed always to be behind. After five games we were won one, tied one, lost three, meaning we had to win all three remaining games, in Moscow, to win. And we fell behind in each game. One of my enduring memories is of a CBC public affairs show that filmed classrooms, taverns, politicians, and old hockey players as the final game played out. Suddenly there was Dief (Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker to you) sitting in his motel room in Prince Albert with Olive and some of his cronies, muttering early in the third period, “always behind, why are we always behind.” In that series it took Henderson’s miracle goal to win it: in 1987 the final breathtaking rush and pass from Wayne Gretsky to Mario Lemieux for the winning goal will remain forever in millions of Canadians memories. And now we have another moment for another generation, seared into the public consciousness, which is to the good of us all. It may be too that the Olympic hockey tournament signalled another important change in the history of this game, much in the way that the Montreal Canadiens’ beautifully skilled destruction in four games straight of the then Stanley Cup Champion Philadelphia Flyers bully boys in the 1977 final put an end to roller derby hockey, at least for a few decades. In Vancouver the Americans played a sweet, fast game using a great core of very young and passionate pros. For our part, the play of the kids, Sid of course, but also Jonathan Toews, Drew Doughty, and even a still-young Rick Nash and Eric Staal, Shea Weber and Brent Seebrook proved that our skill level is, if anything, going up as the years and the generations move on. The Americans’ willingness to accept our brand of hockey with its unique combination of blinding skill and defensive toughness, combined with what must be a re-evaluation by the Russians
of their entire international hockey program will surely mean even more exciting and
epic confrontations to come. And surely there can’t be an NHL General Manager that doesn’t get the message that skill and determination makes for success.
Maybe, even sometime soon, the few remaining goons – sorry, role players – will
become as irrelevant in the game as the celebrated fisticuff champ of the 1970s, the
irrepressible Dave (The Hammer) Schultz became after the Canadiens’ famous 1977
victory (the first of four Cups in a row.) In the meantime, give your heart, arteries andliver a breather: 2014 is only four short years away.