The Goal of My Life (11 page)

Phil was an outstanding player for us in that series. He scored seven goals in that eight-game series, a fact I think is sometimes overlooked. We had four assistant captains on that team, and he was one of them, but right off the bat it became evident who the real leader on the team was, and that was Esposito.

Phil Esposito in 1972 was, in my mind, the best forward in all of hockey. He was at his best when he was in the slot and so dangerous from in close. He was like a bag of cement out there – you couldn’t move him. He had such a great shot, a great release, and every time he was in position and fired the puck, the goalie he was facing had to make a great stop or that puck was going in the net.

Phil was notorious for not working very hard to get into shape – he’ll be the first to admit that – but despite that he really had such incredible stamina. I felt I was in a lot better shape than he was, but he could stay out there on a shift way longer than I could, he just had such great stamina and drive. He really was quite a workhorse.

He was a great, great player, but he would have been really scary if he had been in top shape. If I had lived the lifestyle he did, well, I wouldn’t have been able to take it! But Phil was larger than life. What really stood out about him on the ice was his presence, he just had a commanding presence, and he could do everything you asked him to do out on the ice. On a good night, he was just about unstoppable, and there were a lot of those nights in his career.

He wasn’t a dirty player by any means, but he played hard. He’s a big, lovable guy too, and anybody who knows Phil likes him. He really is a terrific guy to be around. There’s no way we could have won the 1972 series without him in the lineup. He led us on and off the ice in that series.

Harry Sinden remained the calming influence, even after the loss in the fifth game. He reminded us again of his mantra – “One game at a time, guys; one game at a time” – and that all we had to worry about was winning game six. The other games in the series would look after themselves – and that was reassuring to us.

Yes, we were down 1–3–1 now in the series and faced the daunting prospect of having to win three straight games on enemy ice to win the series, but we still had a sense of confidence, believe it or not. We were getting into shape, and we were becoming a very strong and stable hockey club. We went into game six confident that we could outplay them again and that we could win the next game.

For game six, Ken Dryden took over in goal from Tony Esposito. Rod Seiling and Frank Mahovlich sat out, and Red Berenson, Serge Savard, and Dennis Hull were inserted into the lineup. We had a game plan now; it was just a matter of executing it. And we were still loose, hard as it may be to believe. I remember kidding Dennis Hull – who was being brought back into the lineup – on the bus on the way to the rink, saying, “Come on, Moses, time to lead us out of the wilderness.” And you know, Dennis played very well for us and really made a positive impact playing with Jean Ratelle and Rod Gilbert.

It wasn’t a spectacular win in game six, but it was still a victory. Hull played Moses to the hilt by scoring the first goal, and Yvan Cournoyer and I also had goals as we held
on for a 3–2 win. That was the score after two periods, and that’s the way it stayed, as we outshot the Russians 17–7 in the final twenty minutes and Dryden had what was probably his best game of the series.

We were right back in the series and we knew it. So did the Russians. And leave it to Harry to again proclaim, “Just worry about game seven now, and we’ll tackle game eight when we get there.” His philosophy was working, we were taking one game at a time and not worrying about the game after.

Securing the win in game six was great, of course. My confidence was already sky-high as a result of the way things had gone in Canada during the series, and our line was playing well. We were all contributing, our whole team was rounding into form, and we had a sense we would prevail and win the series.

One of the great things about the 1972 Summit Series was that we became teammates for life. Maybe it is politically incorrect to refer to a hockey series as a war these days, but that’s what it felt like to us. Because of the political tensions off the ice and the at-times brutal play on the ice, it was more like war than hockey in the minds of us players.

When you go to war with someone, you share a common bond forever, and as a result, all of us who were on Team Canada ’72 remain close after all these years. What got us through that series was our spirit and our common belief that we were representing our country and that we would all do anything it took to win that series.

Anything.

Of the thirty-five players on that roster, nobody was more of a competitor than Bobby Clarke when it came to doing
whatever it took to win. If this was really a war, Clarke was the ultimate warrior, the one guy who took no prisoners, would never surrender, would battle until the bitter end.

He was a great teammate, and we all knew that. I respected him then, and I respect him now, for all he brought to the table and to our team. It’s now forty years since that memorable series and I haven’t changed my view of Bobby Clarke one bit in all that time.

But I have changed my view of The Slash – which is still talked about almost as much as my winning goal in game eight.

We had struggled against the Russians enormously in the series, right from the get-go. By the time we got to the Soviet Union for the final four games of the series, we knew first-hand just how tough this Russian team was to handle on the ice.

One player in particular, the great Valeri Kharlamov, was causing us fits. It was clear by the time we got to Russia that he was a player we were going to have to find a way to stop if we were going to win the series. And in game six, Clarke found a way to stop him: a vicious slash to his ankle. There can be no doubt that he intended to knock the Russian great out of the game. That’s just the way Bobby played hockey.

I didn’t see the slash when it happened, but I wasn’t that upset with it. We were all caught up in the moment. Today, a slash like that would result in an automatic suspension, that’s for sure. Could you imagine, say, the Detroit Red Wings going out and deliberately breaking Sidney Crosby’s ankle so they could have a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup? But, as was the case with concussions, it was a different era and there was a different philosophy. We all supported Bobby; we all wanted to win that much.

As I mentioned, as the years have gone by, we have remained close teammates, all of us, getting together whenever possible for special events such as anniversary celebrations. In 2002, I was at a hockey game when a reporter asked me what I thought, with the benefit of thirty years of hindsight, of the slash that led to Kharlamov’s ankle being broken. I should have been more wary of the question.

“It was the low point of the series,” I said, and my comments were broadcast widely by the media.

They obviously hurt Bobby a great deal. “I think it’s improper to criticize a teammate thirty years later,” he responded in the
Globe and Mail
. “If it was so offensive, why didn’t he bother to say something after the game?

“I’m surprised at him, because we were a true team. Thirty years ago, we put forth the ultimate team performance. I thought it was foolish for him to say that. It doesn’t hurt me, but I don’t understand why he would bring it up now.”

I regret that Bobby was upset by my remarks and I apologized to him profusely afterwards. But I want to take this opportunity to set the record straight on exactly how I feel on this issue.

I now feel the reporter was just looking to create some controversy and get himself a story, and he sure did. First of all, I didn’t bring the subject up. I was blindsided by his question, and all I said was that I thought it was wrong in terms of my grandchildren, who were now playing hockey. He conveniently left that point out.

I told him I would hate the thought of a coach telling a player to break the ankle of one of my grandchildren in a hockey game, for instance, or having my grandchildren doing the slashing. I answered the question in that light, and I
answered it honestly. In terms of sportsmanship, I have always felt that if you can’t beat them straight up, you don’t deserve to win. Yes, emotions were stirred up in 1972, and in the heat of the moment it seems like anything goes. But when you get more rational, you have to realize that the end doesn’t justify the means.

I didn’t condemn Bobby Clarke in 1972, but I’m a very different person today than I was then. Many of us are.

I feel similarly about the concussion issue – does it make sense to think and feel the same way about concussions now as we did back then? Should we still think and feel the same way about breaking a player’s ankle in the heat of the moment in a hockey game as we did in 1972?

Changing your viewpoint on any issue when you have new information, or when you have become more enlightened in your life, doesn’t make you a hypocrite; it makes you a wiser person. If we cannot learn in retrospect about our behaviour after four decades, will we ever learn?

I feel the same way about Bobby Clarke’s slash as I do about my decision to go back onto the ice with a concussion when the doctor told me not to.

At the time, both seemed to be the right thing to do. With the benefit of wisdom gained over the years, in retrospect, they were wrong. I ask myself the question: would I want my grandchildren to do what Bobby Clarke or I did in 1972? The answer is no, I wouldn’t.

If we cannot learn from our past, then we really have wasted years of our lives. I am very sorry I hurt Bobby Clarke with my comments, but the real point of what happened around that particular story is that I should have been more careful when answering a loaded question from a
reporter I didn’t know very well, and now have little respect for.

This is one of the many reasons players today are very wary around certain writers.

For game seven, Sinden decided to put Tony Esposito in goal and inserted Bill Goldsworthy in place of Red Berenson. This one was a tense back-and-forth battle that came right down to the wire.

Espo opened the scoring, taking passes from Ellis and me to beat Tretiak just as a power play was coming to an end. Alexander Yakushev got one back for the Russians before Vladimir Petrov deked out Tony Esposito to give the Russians a 2–1 edge. Serge Savard then made a great spinarama move and fed Espo in the slot, who again fired a shot home, leaving the score tied 2–2 after the first period.

The second period was scoreless before Rod Gilbert gave us the lead early in the third period, but another goal by Yakushev on yet another Russian power play tied the game. Time was winding down in the third period with the score tied 3–3, and even though we felt we were outplaying the Russians again, we appeared headed for the second tie game of the series.

That, of course, would do us no good whatsoever. Russia would still lead the series 3–2–2 with another tie, which meant the best we could hope for was a tie in the series if we happened to win game eight. I really felt we were going to have to pull the goalie if it came down to the final minute or so, as a tie in this game would accomplish nothing for us.

With three minutes to go in the game, I got what would likely be my last shift of the night. I know it may be hard to believe, but things were going so well for me at that point that I really believed I was going to score.

Savard hit me with a pass at centre ice, and after dodging one of their forwards, I came to the blue line alone. Two defencemen greeted me, and the one to my left tried to swipe the puck away just as I was trying to slip the puck through his legs. The puck hit his skate and I was able to pick it up again and keep on going, with the defenceman on my right now moving over to try to take me out.

He wound up tripping me, but I was able keep the puck in front of me and my stick away from him. As I was going down, Tretiak dropped to his knees, anticipating a low shot since I was falling, but I managed to rifle a shot over his right shoulder just under the crossbar for the game-winning goal.

What a moment! Without question that was one of the most satisfying goals I had ever scored in my life, and certainly the best one from my point of view. It was a crucial one, and the players came off the bench to mob me behind the net as it gave us a 4–3 lead with just two minutes remaining in that pivotal game seven.

We killed off the final minutes and had come all the way back to even the series at 3–3–1 with that 4–3 victory. I had scored the game-winning goals in games six and seven, and now it would all come down to an eighth and deciding game.

It was an incredible thrill, and we celebrated in the dressing room because, despite everything we had been through, we could still win this series. I was still on cloud nine as we went back to the hotel to rest up for the final game two days later.

To this day, I can remember telling Eleanor, “Honey, I’ll probably never score a bigger goal in my life.”

Well, as we all know now, I had one more big goal left in me.

T
HURSDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
28, 1972. T
HE BIGGEST DAY
in Canadian hockey history up to that point, perhaps, and in retrospect it may still be. I will leave that up to the hockey historians to decide; all I know is that it was a momentous day for our team, for the three thousand Canadian fans in the stands, and for the millions of Canadians watching across the country anywhere there was a television set.

But it didn’t start out very well.

Emotionally, we were sky high heading into that eighth game, and looking back on it, that almost cost us in the same way as our hyper feelings did before game one – but this time, just early.

We got into trouble by taking two holding penalties and faced a five-on-three. You can’t do that against the Russians, and Yakushev made us pay, knocking a rebound past Dryden to open the scoring. We got our own power play a little later, and Sinden started using Ron Ellis and me with Espo on the power play. We were out there with him when a
Russian defenceman did us a big favour by knocking in a rebound from Brad Park’s shot into his own goal to tie the score. The goal was credited to Phil, who was right there, but he never actually touched the puck – anyway, the score was now tied 1–1.