Summit Series 50 Years Ago, Game One in Sweden

"I wasn't impressed with the Canadian team. We had too much respect for them, but not anymore."
These were the words of Swedish coach Kjell Svensson after his squad was beaten by the Canadians by a score of 4-1. His assistant coach, Bjorn Norell added, "It was a bad game, it was really our first game for the season."
Harry Sinden summed it up, "When you win, everything is supposed to be okay. I sure as hell hate to think how I would feel if we had lost that one." Sinden was not pleased with how his team dealt with the European refereeing that they would quickly have to get used to. "We reacted silly. We react at home to a spear with a slash or a fight. Here, it's so obvious. You can't do that." The officials for this game would become familiar to Sinden and Canada; Franz Baader and Josef Kompalla. Sinden explained, "They have regular jobs. They only referee a handful of games a year. They can't be in shape for this. I don't like the officiating, but we have to learn to live with it. It was terrible out there this game and it will be worse in Moscow." In the third period, Phil Esposito could only laugh at a comically bad offside call by Baader, yelling at him,"You had too much beer last night." This one-liner actually drew a laugh from the crowd.
The line of Clarke, Henderson and Ellis produced the first two goals for Canada by the second minute of the second period. Ulf Sterner made it 2-1 a few minutes later. The score remained 2-1 until the nine minute mark of the final frame when Brad Park notched a goal and Wayne Cashman made it 4-1 with under four minutes remaining.
 Commenting on his team's play, Sinden said, "We spent the first period playing like the Belleville midgets. We couldn't move the puck an inch. We didn't know what the hell we were doing." He continued, "We know now our guys have to learn to play on this wider ice. It is a different game with this much more room and you can do a lot of things here you can't do on the smaller ice surfaces at home. We will be more familiar with the ice by the time we get to Moscow but not as much as I would like us to be."
Sinden summed it up, "This game alarmed me because I'm not sure how much you can blame the ice surface for the way we played. I'd better not blame it all on the ice surface."





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