Team Canada officially born 40 years ago today.

Forty years ago today, Harry Sinden officially christened the name of his hockey club that would play the Russians in September 1972. At a press conference in Toronto he declared the squad would be called "Team Canada"  after rejecting names like "Pro Canada", "Canadian Team" and "Canada's Best".

Sinden also announced John Ferguson as his assistant coach this day. As for player selection, Sinden said he was in the process of contacting NHL general managers "to get the official word that, so far as they're concerned, their players are available". He added, "I'm about two-thirds of the way through the list and have had extremely good co-operation. I will have spoken to all of them by end of week, then I'll go about checking the players."

Sinden also discussed the proposed size of his roster of "35 or 36" players. He said he was planning a large squad because "four games in the first week of September are too many to ask anyone to play after so short a training period. I don't want to have any players playing all four games. All 35 or 36 players will go to Russia and all will play in at least one game and possibly in as many as seven."

Of course these plans all changed after losing 7-3 in Game One. Although he may not have intended on using players in all four early matches in Canada, a total of eight guys played in all the four of the home games.

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