Summit Series '72; On to Moscow!

 

After the Canadian half of the Summit Series, Hockey Canada produced an "Official Home TV Program", which I have in my collection. It's filled with great colour photos as well as the stats from the first four games (at bottom of the page).

 Upon arrival in Moscow from Stockholm, most of Team Canada was whisked away from the waiting reporters.

Phil Esposito however was interviewed briefly at the airport by Tass, the official Russian news agency, which distributed these quotations in it's world service. His thoughts seem subdued and perhaps have been sanitized by the Russian news agency.

"The U.S.S.R. national team are magnificent hockey players. I had not seen Soviet players earlier and could not judge their mastery."

"I hope that the games in Moscow will be tense and interesting. Your athletes play fair and I am sure the referees will face no difficulties."

 "I particularly liked Yakushev, and I wouldn't mind playing on a line with Mikhailov and Kharlamov."

Dan Proudfoot of the Globe and Mail writes about the surprising play of the Clarke, Ellis, Henderson line.

"This has been just super for our confidence," Henderson says, "All of a sudden we see ourselves skating right with the very best. The way we clicked with Bobby Clarke at centre was the big break, and we've never stopped. I really think that our line has been the most consistent on the team. We're doing the job both offensively and defensively." 

Alan Eagleson summed up the trio's effectiveness with,"It's a piece of cake for that line. Clarke shoots the puck in, Ronnie chases it, gets it and passes it out to Henderson who scores."

Henderson concludes with,"Seems funny, that when we started we hoped we would get in one game in Canada and one game in Russia. Then we started going pretty good and soon it was, there's no damn way they'll get us out of the lineup."

 And of course this line was indeed integral in the next four games in Moscow.