Summit Series Game 8: Paul Henderson’s storybook goal puts Canada on top of the hockey world

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Star on Sept. 29, 1972, following Canada’s 6-5 win in Moscow, and is part of Summit Series At 50 — celebrating the 50th anniversary of the iconic eight-game hockey series between the Soviet Union and Canada.

MOSCOW— “When I think about it, I’d say it was the fans who made the difference,” Paul Henderson said last night as he sprawled in Team Canada’s dressing room and rested after the last and greatest of his three nights of incredible heroics at Moscow’s Palace of Sport.

The Canucks had won three successive matches here and Henderson had supplied the decisive goal on each occasion. Last night’s crucial shot gave Team Canada a 6-5 advantage in the closing minute and an edge over the Soviet Union in the first world series of hockey.

“The way the people back home got behind us, well, we really couldn’t let them down,” he said, indicating a hallway lined with telegrams and letters containing an estimated 40,000 signatures sent here from Canada.

“And the people who came here for the games, they’ll never really know how much they did for us. Every time we stopped on the ice or made a move, 3,000 of them outshouted 14,000 Russians. I’m convinced that kind of support is what kept us going and in the end pulled us through. We felt an obligation.”

He had played so brilliantly throughout the early part of this competition that his attorney, Al Eagleson, made so bold as to suggest a raise in pay to Harold Ballard, who is president of Toronto Maple Leafs and therefore, Henderson’s employer.

Eagleson, as head of the National Hockey League Players Association, has been more or less in charge of Team Canada and Ballard was in Moscow as a spectator. Naturally, their paths crossed from time to time and one day, in the lobby of the Intourist Hotel, Eagleson said he thought it would be a splendid gesture on Ballard’s part to renegotiate the Henderson contract they’d worked out back in July.

“I wouldn’t even think of it,” Ballard stated. “A deal is a deal.”

But that was before last night’s triumph, which happened courtesy of the deft touch which got Henderson his seventh goal against the comrades. The win, which was quite unexpected after the Sovietskies took a two-goal margin into the third period, touched off a wave of Canadian enthusiasm which is sure to infect Ballard.

Now Henderson is likely to get his increase, even if King Harold has to start selling Vic Hadfield dartboards to raise the money it might take.

Ron Ellis, Norm Ullman’s other winger with the Leafs, was almost as much of a revelation in this showdown with the Soviets. But his main purpose in being here ceased to exist after Valery Kharlamov was hurt in game six last Sunday night. He is the Soviets’ most dangerous attacker and Ellis was recruited specifically to hound him and reduce his effectiveness. This he did with notable success, even though Kharlamov got six points in the six matches he worked — seven actually, if you count last night’s brief appearances. But, by Kharlamov’s standards, a point a game is subpar production.

The enduring image of the historic Canada-U.S.S.R. hockey series will be of Al Eagleson in action. And let’s be clear on one thing: The Eagle made this thing work dating back to the time in April when the principle was accepted by both nations and he strove mightily to carry it through successfully right through until it was all over at 10:30 last night. Then, ashen-faced and thin from fatigue and tension, he permitted himself a giant sigh of satisfaction.

“There have been critics and this victory will be questioned, I’m sure, but we finished on top and the outcome is what matters, nothing else,” Eagleson said.

Just consider what Eagleson went through yesterday.

In the morning he engaged in tough negotiations with Soviet shinny officials who were attempting to inflict two terrible referees on Team Canada for last night’s final and decisive match. Eagleson knew officiating would be a hurdle the players would have to overcome no matter who the referees were, but he also knew his men had an extremely negative attitude about Franz Baader, one of the men the Soviets insisted they wanted.

Baader’s presence, he feared, might have a conclusive psychological effect. He also thought it important to establish the fact the Canadians would not allow themselves to be pushed around. So he fought and threatened and reasoned and pleaded and finally emerged with an acceptable compromise — Josef Kompalla, the less obnoxious of the two West German referees, and the very competent Rudy Batja from Czechoslovakia.

At the rink, Eagleson was sitting in the front row of the boxes, directly across from the Canadian bench. When Jean Paul Parise was disqualified in the first period, it was easy to see that just about everybody over there had lost control. A bench and a chair flew onto the ice, followed by fluttering towels. Eagleson sprinted around the rink and quickly restored order. A little more than three minutes later, Phil Esposito had the tying goal and the Canucks had their concentration back.

Then, in the third period, the red light didn’t come on when Yvan Cournoyer potted the fifth Canadian goal. Batja and Kompalla signalled a score, but Eagleson didn’t notice and he bounded out of his seat, ready to charge out to redress this injustice. In making his leap, he knocked over a couple of Moscow constables who put the grab on him.

Team Canada players came charging from all directions, seized Eagleson from the grasp of the law and carried him bodily across the rink to the team bench where he stayed until Henderson’s storybook goal went in, whereupon he joined the gleeful mob scene inside the Soviet blue line.

The whole scene indicated to what extent coach Harry Sinden had developed team felling with this organization and also to what degree it had been Eagleson’s personal project.

He solved the first major dilemma which could have killed the whole thing. That was in the spring when many National Hockey League owners said they would refuse to let their employees take part. Eagleson worked out a plan which prompted them to quickly grant their approval and indeed their co-operation.

The players’ association, he said, would agree to forego a boost it had been seeking in pension payments — an estimated $80,000 a club. Instead, they would play against the Soviets, Swedes and Czechs for the pension fund. That was language the NHL understood, and the series was on.

There hasn’t been a day when Eagleson hasn’t been deeply involved in Team Canada work. He has driven himself to exhaustion and the brink of a nervous breakdown, especially here in Moscow where he’s borne the brunt of the Sovietskies’ psychological filibustering.

“Even when we were losing, I felt the thing had been worth the trouble just to see it happen,” Eagleson said. “Just think how much more strongly I feel about that since it’s over and we’ve won.”

“If we started the series now,” Serge Savard was saying, “we’d win all eight games.”

He might have a point, too. People like Sinden and his assistant, John Ferguson, and Eagleson didn’t like to dwell on the matter when they lost two and tied one of the games played during the first week of September. But privately the could see what they hadn’t realized before, that three weeks of preparation wasn’t enough to get even the best NHL performers into adequate condition for any competition with the tireless Ruskies.

The fact that Team Canada was able to sweep the final three games and especially to overpower the comrades in the third period last night would seem to certify that analysis.

The rigours of the past week in Moscow probably have brought the members of Team Canada to midseason form. Savard was probably overstating the case. The comrades would still beat Team Canada from time to time, but not regularly.

However, they’re awfully close to that level and this much is quite plain: The Soviet Nationals are as strong as the better NHL clubs and this exposure to professional opposition will show them the way to grow even better.

In other words, it may become extremely difficult to repeat this month’s success in years to come.

Ironically, the Soviets are picking up some pro habits that eventually could be their undoing. Their workouts are softer now, apparently because the athletes refused to go on accepting ironfisted methods of coach Anatoli Tarasov, even though he was the individual who created the Soviet school of hockey and elevated it to the present heights. They are becoming more stylized and individualistic, too, things Tarasov despised and weeded out. At the same time, the pros think they have seen the light, too.

“We can never go all the way back to our old methods,” says Gardens boss Harold Ballard, “not after what the Russians have shown us.

“We beat them, but they had manoeuvres and ideas that will be wonderful in our game. They’re great for the fans. And any team can improve itself by adopting them and some of the coaching techniques the Russians use.”

Last spring, after the Soviets made Vsevolod Bobrov their national coach, Ballard tried to locate Tarasov, who had been fired, and bring him to Toronto as a guest coach.

He hasn’t abandoned such a scheme, although Tarasov may not be the man. But he is absolutely convinced the Soviets have something to show the big leaguers.

And so the two major powers of hockey pass at the crossroads, one learning from the other in a quest for self-improvement.

Which is what is was all about, really. Although, as Harry Sinden was saying: “It’s a sweeter victory than any Stanley Cup win could be.”

More from Summit Series At 50:

Summit Series Game 7: Henderson strikes again, but there’s a storm brewing

Summit Series Game 6: Ken Dryden alters style, Canada finds new life in Moscow

Summit Series Game 5: Canadian collapse in Moscow makes clear the Soviets are ‘the better team’

Summit Series Game 4: Canadians hit rock bottom vs. Soviets as boos rain down in Vancouver

Summit Series Game 3: Canadians tie Soviets, but there’s no doubt they lost something too

Summit Series Game 2: Canada shows why they’re the NHL stars, evening series vs. Soviets

Summit Series Game 1: Soviets embarrass Canadians on home ice — and demonstrate how the game should be played

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