Kharlamov was a great player, but every bit as dirty as 23-year-old Clarkie.
No-one except maybe Mikhailov was as dirty as Clarke. Kharlamov wasn't the cleanest of all players, but he didn't brake ankles and didn't butt-end opponents like Clarke did.
the Russkies were actually dirtier than the Canadians overall....Some of you need to rewatch the series... or how about watch it for the first time
Go and tell that to Paul Henderson. Henderson: "The Russian players were ten times the sportsmen we were."
Russians, Swedes and Czechs were painted as the dirtiest players to ever take the ice by the Canadian media. Since there were no proof of it, it went on to say that they were sneaky and did dirty things that no one could see not even the cameras(!).
We constantly hear how sneaky dirty the Soviets were, yet there is little video evidence supporting this... Then again, maybe the Soviets were SO sneaky they also managed to trick the cameras.
The cameras try to follow the puck, so if anything happens elsewhere on the ice they don't catch it.
I think the Canadians made this claim because, 1. it was a way to justify their own dirty play; 2. they had the pre-conceived opinion that the 'evil soviets' were extremely dirty, hence any typical hockey scrum was viewed in that light.
I don't think you're doing the whole situation or Team Canada complete justice. Even though the apologetic tendency was there from the start, it doesn't mean that there is no truth in the accusations. As for the influence of pre-conceived opinions, the Canadians labeled the Swedes "dirtier than the Soviets". Phil Esposito was quoted as saying: "The Russians are gentlemen compared to these guys." Did Team Canada have a pre-conceived opinion that the Swedes were even more devilish than the 'evil soviets'? No, I don't think their opinion was pre-conceived, I think it was formed after the experience of what actually happened on the ice. Just as the Europeans were truely angry about some attitudes of the Canadians, the Canadians were truely angry about some attitudes of the Europeans (Swedes more than Soviets!).
...the notion that they constantly played dirty and/or employed dirty tactics just isn't supported by video evidence; nor are there many interview from older Americans/Czech/Swedish/Finnish players claiming as such. This accusation ironically seems to only come from the old-time Canadian players and Canadian media.
The accusations were directed against the Europeans in general. The charge was that stuff like high-sticking and diving was more common in European hockey than in North America. The Czechoslovaks, Swedes and Finns didn't complain much? No surprise! All of them were part of the same European hockey culture and unlike the Canadians they were familiar with the moves and tactics employed there. They had no reason to complain about the Soviets because the Soviets weren't worse then themselves.
As for the Americans, I'd need more interviews and statements to get a proper picture of what their opinion was. The point for me is that I have a hard time believing legions of Canadian hockey personal, from players to referees to journalists, were so blinded and misguided as to cook up a purely fabricated notion of high-sticking and systematic interference being more common in Europe and stick with that notion for decades. Just like the continuous European complaints about excessive checking by the Canadian have a factual foundation, the continuous Canadian complaints about high-sticking by the Europeans have one. It was a clash of two different hockey cultures: not only in terms of tactics and style, but also in terms of what was considered tolerable and what was not.
It was also during this period the whole "Canada doesnt try if the game doesn't mean anything"-crap started.
Are you talking about 1972? I have never heard any member of Team Canada claim they lost a single game against the Soviets cause they didn't care enough.
