1979 Challenge Cup discussion thread

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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Wasn't it better to send the national jr champion team who were playing together all year round!!!!!!! C'mon make some sense please!
 

New User Name

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Jan 2, 2008
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It's funny how every real hockey brain in Canada back then starting by the very best and intelligent players Orr and Gretzky admitted that Canadian Hockey was backward and needing to learn from the Soviets about skills skating passing conditionning etc... The "heart" was there yes but most of the time this was used for injuring players and winning ugly without any sort of glory or credibility...

It's almost a shame that Gretzky's parents left Belarus... Imagine him with those CCCP jerseys! Right now hockey would probably be just as obscure a sport in Canada as it is now in the US...


huh? You lose all credibility with that statement.

Hockey was number 1 in Canada before Wayne.
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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They were just obeying orders that's it. Then refs were closer to WWF refs in that they didn't call anything and when the Eagleson Mafia took over well they were there to make sure Canada wouldn't get humiliated even more...
 

Mr Kanadensisk

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May 13, 2005
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They were just obeying orders that's it. Then refs were closer to WWF refs in that they didn't call anything and when the Eagleson Mafia took over well they were there to make sure Canada wouldn't get humiliated even more...

Somehow being called a cheater by guys like you and Peter25 doesn't carry that much weight. I wonder why?
 

Theokritos

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Apr 6, 2010
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All in all USSR dominated The Olympics and Worlds and for everyone who saw the games back then it was clear that Hockey Canada was miles behind USSR hockey in every aspect but intimidation and anti-hockey.

Right now Canada probably slightly ahead but then USSR was MILES ahead.

It's almost a shame that Gretzky's parents left Belarus... Imagine him with those CCCP jerseys! Right now hockey would probably be just as obscure a sport in Canada as it is now in the US...

There goes your credibility, out of the window...
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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You are probably the worst one in knowing hockey history. How old are you?
Are you working for Hockey Canada? Players of played back then from Canada would be angry at your comments.They are that much off the mark.
0 Crediblity whatsoever.

You know Koharski admitted himself he couldn't call the penalty on Bykov and even worse how he could give the Soviets fake penalties after fake penalties when the good Canadians were down 3-0 at home in the deciding game? That had all the making of 198-1 yet again and this time Eagleson wouldn't have any of it...
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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The only real bad loss the Soviet Hockey Dynasty had was in 1980, but that was a Miracle so the dynasty is intact! 7-3 6-0 8-1 10-3 are your losses on home soil!
 

canuck2010

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Dec 21, 2010
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Puskin apologies if I'm off base on this one but I think you're here as a **** disturber.
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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By the way canuck go chek the medals history for the U-20 you'll see Russia is ahead of Canada there also...
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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1982????? Talk about not knowing history. The tournament started in 1974 and somehow became even more official in 1977.
 

Yakushev72

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Dec 27, 2010
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Yakushev 72

The 1979 Challenge Cup was, in my opinion, Soviet hockey's finest hour! The 1979 Soviet Challenge Cup team was the Canadian/NHL hockey executive's worst nightmare! It was the answer to the question "What would happen if you took a Soviet national team that trains 1,300 hours a year at a ridiculously intense pace, and when the mood strikes, is capable of beating any team in the World with some degree of ease, but which often lacks intensity, desire, and the will to fight for victory, and clone it with the Canadian trait of being willing to run through a wall, if that's what it takes to win?" What happens if you create a hybrid of Valery Kharlamov and Mark Messier, Sergei Makarov with Bobby Clarke? For one time only in the history of Soviet hockey, the 1979 Challenge Cup provided a glimpse into "what if" looks like in the flesh.

What you had was the consummate Soviet skill in skating, passing, and setting up beautiful combination plays effortlessly combined with an intense desire to win and a willingness to pay any physical price to achieve that win. Don't take my word for it -check out what the Canadian players had to say about the Soviets after the series. Bobby Clarke, Bob Gainey, Guy LaFleur, Bryan Trottier - all said basically the same thing, that "we have never seen a Soviet team that hungry, that willing to fight for the puck, willing to give as much as take in the form of body checks, and having a greater will to win than us." It showed what would happen when a team that was intensely trained also had an intense desire to win.

Unfortunately for the Soviets, whatever it was that prompted such a remarkable transformation proved to be short-lived. In spite of all the hue and cry in Ottawa to totally revamp Canadian hockey, Soviet teams came back less than a year later and stunk up the ice in Super Series performances against NHL teams (CSKA lost to Buffalo 6-1), and lost the gold medal to the USA at Lake Placid. I never saw evidence of that Soviet zeal after the Challenge Cup.
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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Please be serious you forgot about 198-1 in Montreal?

About the desire and fight well just watch the 3 final games of CC87(with a weaker team) and how we overplayed and outdesire the Canadians on their ice with everything stacked for them. 6-5 5-6 3-0 the last game CC87 we won it.

Don't ever say that this team lacked heart desire drive etc. The only thing it lacked compared to the late 70's teams was depth everywhere and a goalie...
 

Yakushev72

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Dec 27, 2010
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Yakushev 72

I don't think the Canada/World Cup can be given the same prestige as a World or Olympic championship. My reason is that the tournament was organized by Canadians to be in Canada, for the purpose of giving Canada the maximum possible advantage to win the tournament. You can't have a top-tier tournament that is exclusively designed to ensure that the home nation wins. After the Soviets won the Canada Cup in 1981, it reached absurd levels in the round robin of the 1984 Canada Cup when Alan Eagleson, the owner and general manager of the Canada Cup, decreed that the Canadian loss, 6-3, to the Soviets was the last straw, "no more European refs to work games with Team Canada." He was angry at Dag Olson of Sweden, so he took his ball and went home.

He had the right to ban European referees, because the Canada Cup was a wholly owned Canadian enterprise, and was not an international venture. In the 1987 Canada Cup final, with the Soviets vs. Canada, Don Koharski, a Canadian NHL referee, officiated ALL THREE FINALS GAMES. It took a last minute goal in the third game for Canada to eventually breathe easy, but the ice couldn't have been tilted anymore in Canada's direction.
 

canuck2010

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Dec 21, 2010
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1982????? Talk about not knowing history. The tournament started in 1974 and somehow became even more official in 1977.

That's why I said we didn't send a national team to the U20 until 1982. The the argument I've been using is that you guys never played the best Canadian teams, Olympic, Worlds or U20.

You need to be more aware of your history.

In fact best on best has hardly ever happened in the course of things. Not even at U20.
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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I know and I hope everybody will know and understand all of this you are 100% right. My point was just that this team USSR of 1987 certainly showed as much character and everything that the team of 1979...In the face of so MUCH MORE adversity in the sense that the event was as close to a fixed Wrestlemania match as it can be... I agree about CanadaCups having 0 credibility whatsoever and everything. Still the hockey played there was probably the best ever and we should be remember as the team who beat Eagleson the Refs Gretzky and Lemieux in their backyard...

By the way lots of people discuss the non-call by Koharski on Bykov late in the game while I agree it was a clear proof of the game being fixed what was even worse by far was that after the Soviets took the lead 3-0 early in the game, he called numerous fake penalties in a row againts us...If not for those we would have won probably 7-3 or something even worse like 8-1 again...
 

Pushkin

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Aug 29, 2010
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I mean during USSR dynasty...Now we have the Olympics wich are as close as it gets but it's almost as obvious as the WorldCup in soccer that SouthAmericans wins in SouthAmerica and Europeans wins in Europe...

In 4 Olympics North America vs. North America in the two finals in North American Olympics ans two Europe vs. Europe finals outside of NorthAmerica...

Anyhow we will never know, we will never have a rivalry like Canada-USSR in 60's 70' 80's and we never had the chance too see it with decent refereeing like today and odds even...REALLY TOO BAD

But for whatever reasons even diehard Canadian fans would agree that the skill level the Soviets had back then was unequalled and out of this world. No wonder Gretzky was dsecribed the most Russian like player in NA...
 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa

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May 16, 2009
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Since we are only going by facts (lol) on this thread, here is another fact.

Canada has ALWAYS been the more dominant hockey nation. ALWAYS.

Just because we didn't have a system that forced people to become full time, basically unpaid servants that had to play for one central team, does not mean we were not the more dominant nation.

It means that once in awhile, when best on best tournaments are held, our side could be unprepared physically, mentally, or from a team aspect - and thus get beaten. But if we had a full time all-star team of our best players travelling the world and considering themselves our "national" team under the guise of being a club team, then I promise you, that team would have smoked any Soviet, Czech, or other Eastern block team that it faced, and smoked them badly.

There a fact for you.







Edit: this is meant to be satirical.
 
Last edited:

Dipsy Doodle

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May 28, 2006
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Since we are only going by facts (lol) on this thread, here is another fact.

Canada has ALWAYS been the more dominant hockey nation. ALWAYS.

Just because we didn't have a system that forced people to become full time, basically unpaid servants that had to play for one central team, does not mean we were not the more dominant nation.

It means that once in awhile, when best on best tournaments are held, our side could be unprepared physically, mentally, or from a team aspect - and thus get beaten. But if we had a full time all-star team of our best players travelling the world and considering themselves our "national" team under the guise of being a club team, then I promise you, that team would have smoked any Soviet, Czech, or other Eastern block team that it faced, and smoked them badly.

There a fact for you.

It'd be nice to leave that group to their own delusions and avoid a jingo pissing contest.
 

WarriorofTime

Registered User
Jul 3, 2010
27,690
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Since we are only going by facts (lol) on this thread, here is another fact.

Canada has ALWAYS been the more dominant hockey nation. ALWAYS.

Just because we didn't have a system that forced people to become full time, basically unpaid servants that had to play for one central team, does not mean we were not the more dominant nation.

It means that once in awhile, when best on best tournaments are held, our side could be unprepared physically, mentally, or from a team aspect - and thus get beaten. But if we had a full time all-star team of our best players travelling the world and considering themselves our "national" team under the guise of being a club team, then I promise you, that team would have smoked any Soviet, Czech, or other Eastern block team that it faced, and smoked them badly.

There a fact for you.

That's speculation. Give the Russians their due. They were great players who played a different, better skilled style of hockey. I don't see why it's so absurd to say that the Soviets and Canadians were about equal overall in hockey during this period.
 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Registered User
May 16, 2009
12,252
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That's speculation. Give the Russians their due. They were great players who played a different, better skilled style of hockey. I don't see why it's so absurd to say that the Soviets and Canadians were about equal overall in hockey during this period.

I don't either.

My post was basically satire. The point is, speculating is nothing more than that (which is my true believe on the subject, as opposed to those who believe their opinions to be "fact").

The rest is just chest-pounding nationalism, which doesn't make a series more or less important than it really was.
 

Mr Kanadensisk

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May 13, 2005
3,013
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That's speculation. Give the Russians their due. They were great players who played a different, better skilled style of hockey. I don't see why it's so absurd to say that the Soviets and Canadians were about equal overall in hockey during this period.

The Soviets were good, but you have to remember that for them their main focus was always international hockey and in North America it was always the NHL. The Soviets never had enough people playing hockey to be an equal to Canada. The fact that Canada could throw together a group of players and regularly defeat the Soviet National team shows that overall Canada was way way above the USSR in hockey.

Look at the NHL stats for the early 90's. The Soviet trained players were good, but never came close to dominating the league.
 

Pushkin

Registered User
Aug 29, 2010
131
0
Didn't Sergeï Fedorov won the Hart Trophy? Mogilny had 76 goals one year Bure two 60 goals seasons in a row Zubov 89pts one year PLEASE...

The difference is in Canada hockey is by far #1. Especially in the pool of players. Sure the depth will always be better but for a long period of time the depth Canada had didn't produced enough high quality players. I remember by Nagano time and the years after how the league was dominated by the Jagr Selanne Forsberg Yashin Bure Lidstrom etc. Then after a couple of epic failures Hockey Canada decided to reintroduce skills in the teaching...Now you get Stamkos Toews Crosby caliber players coming out every year it seems.

With the pool of players if the training process and coaching would be good Canada should DOMINATE. USSR dominated 60's 70's 80's. The 90's weren't dominate by anyone and the new millenium could be considered Canada's but when you look at the 7th place in Torino you have to wonder...But at the moment the NHL is dominated by Canadians wich was very far from true 10 years ago.
 

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