Michael Enright on what the Summit Series meant to Canadians 50 years ago

This is part of a series of columns by Michael Enright, reflecting his more than 50 years as a journalist and CBC broadcaster covering Canadian and global news events.

Fifty years ago this month, the country pulsated with an urgency, an emotional upheaval, a national spasm of unity it hadn't felt since Expo 67.

Canada was playing hockey against the dark forces of the Soviet Union in a tournament of testing: the country that felt it held the patent on hockey as it should be played was going up against the obstreperous Russian bear.

The 1972 Summit Series was saturated in Cold War political rhetoric. It was East versus West, good versus evil, capitalism versus brute socialism. The term Iron Curtain was still in wide usage.

For a few moments, with each game in the eight-game series, ordinary life in Canada slowed down not quite to a crawl. As Canada moved to the final, telling game, it stopped altogether.

Children skipped school, employees stayed home or flocked to bars to watch the game on a big television. When Canada finally won on the legendary goal by Paul Henderson, the country lost its mind.

Early fandom

The three hockey stars of my childhood were Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay of the Detroit Red Wings, and Foster Hewitt of Hockey Night in Canada on radio and television.

Detroit was my family's favourite team, not the Toronto Maple Leafs. We ignored the Leafs largely because the team's owner, Conn Smythe, was regarded as notoriously anti-Catholic.

In teen-hood, I was a manifestly mediocre student at one of the most famous hockey high schools in the world, St. Michael's College School in Toronto. My homeroom teacher was Father David Bauer, who coached a number of Canadian national teams.

The school team, the Majors, was a seedbed for some of the most glamorous NHL stars of that era. Davey Keon sat in front of me in French class. Gerry Cheevers was a year behind me. Other classmates — Arnie Brown, Caesar Maniago and Gary Dineen — would go on to professional careers. Perhaps the greatest of them all, Frank Mahovlich, was in Grade 13. 

I arrived for my first day in Grade 9 in a spiffy new blue blazer and with brand new textbooks. That afternoon, a few of the rowdier upperclassmen grabbed my textbooks and were about to throw them into a nearby urinal when I heard a high, almost falsetto voice: "Leave the kid alone." 

It was the Big M — Mahovlich. I was his greatest fan forever. He and Bobby Orr were the best skaters I'd ever seen. 

A scandal overshadowing anniversary

But the gods of hockey are fickle. What is given can summarily be taken away. And this year's Summit Series celebrations will take second place to the unspooling revelations of an enormous scandal: that Hockey Canada was using money from its National Equity Fund — financed by the registration fees paid by young players and their parents — to settle sexual assault claims. 

Polls confirmed what was obvious — that parents were outraged a portion of the fees they paid was underwriting a sex scandal and hush money payoffs. There was widespread talk about a toxic culture of intimidation and cover up within minor hockey at all levels.

Immediately there were calls for the entire board of Hockey Canada to resign. The chair did eventually resign, but CEO Scott Smith has refused to quit, and the board of Hockey Canada backed his decision. That prompted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to tell reporters: "It's fairly clear that both the government and Canadians in general have lost confidence in the leadership at Hockey Canada." 

How Canada won that final game

The roiling sex scandal is a galling shadow looming over the celebration of Canada's win over the then-Soviet Union 50 years ago.

It was more than a hockey match. It was the height of the Cold War. The Soviets had dominated international play, but Canada wrote the grammar on how real hockey should be played.

• CBC Sports Oral Histories | The '72 Summit Series, 50 years later: Part I

Sports journalists across the country mused that anything less than a sweep for Canada would be humiliating. Said team coach Harry Sinden at the time: "Canada is first in the world in two things — hockey and wheat."

But the team and Candians across the country were surprised at the level of play by the Russians. After the Canadians lost their final home game, fans booed the team off the ice.

Heading into the eighth and final game in Moscow, each team had three wins and three loses. There had been one tie.

The final game was the kind Canadian fans were used to: scrambling, chaotic, rough. At one point, forward Jean-Paul Parisé was given a game misconduct. Sinden threw a chair on the ice. The teams exchanged power plays.

In the dying moment, it fell to Paul Henderson, the unassuming forward from Kincardine, Ont. With 60 seconds to go, Henderson jumped onto the ice and headed straight for the Russian net. He would say later: "I had this strange feeling I could score the winning goal."

The series will always be remembered 

Personally, I pretty much lost interest in the NHL after expansion in 1967. And I don't remember exactly where I was when Canada won the Summit Series. I was living in Montreal and I recall Central Station invaded by 5,000 fans watching the final game on television.

People love hockey for all kinds of reasons: its speed, its grace and yes, its violence. The stench of scandal will hover over hockey for some time. But it can't drive out the memories of a time when our emotions were charged, our hearts were gladdened and we were all kids again, lacing up our first pair of skates.