Well the Soviets also were missing some key players like Firsov.
Talking about 1972 here. Good one. Not having Anatoli Firsov the equivalent prejudice to not having Bobby Orr and Bobby Hull. That's funny.
In any case. Firsov wasn't used because he was too old and too slow. Just like Rags Ragulin, who did play and was benched after his impression of a pylon was deemed too realistic. Who are you going to put next on the list, Starshinov?
No many of the best Soviet players did not play at that tournament, so it can't be called an A team.
Talking about 1976 here. I'm also kind of sick of hearing this excuse so I am going to set the facts out and let people judge for themselves. First, the Soviets would never ice a team with a hammer and sickle and "CCCP" on the sweater that they didn't think represented their best chance of winning. If anyone was the Vince Lombardis of hockey, it was the Soviets. It was the height of the cold war and the mission was to win every time they stepped onto the ice in international play to show that communism was superior to the West. Neither the Olympics nor the WC was held in the enemy heartland, North America. This tournament was. It was important, make no mistake.
The Soviets had just been beaten at the World Championships by Czechoslovakia after squeaking by a flu-riddled Czech team at the Olympics. Since the Czechs were going to use the same powerful squad at the Canada Cup, and the NHL and WHA had set aside their differences for the sole purpose of fielding the best team that had ever put on a Canada jersey, the Soviets felt forced to take a calculated risk. They left some of their veterans at home (e.g. Mikhailov, Petrov and Yakushev -- Kharlamov was badly injured in a car accident, breaking up his unit anyway) and went instead with a group of speedy youngsters, including Balderis, Kapustin, Skvortsov, Aleksander Golikov and Alexandrov as well as young Bilyaletdinov on defence. They still had a strong core of '72 veterans including Tretiak, Lebedev, Lutchenko, Vasiliev, Gusev, Maltsev, Shalimov, Vikulov and Zhluktov to mentor the kids.
It is therefore true is that the team the Soviets iced represented a slightly different style of team, but they did so consciously; they did so only because they thought it would give them the best chance of winning at the time. There are of course rumours of a power struggle between Kulagin and Tikhonov and a revolt against the latter by the players of Mikhailov's generation but until one of the players steps forward and verifies that there was and that it was a factor in player selection they must be treated as unsubstantiated. The Soviet brass also made the usual pre-tournament disclaimers just in case the team lost, such as calling the squad "experimental" and saying the Olympics and WC were their priorities. I don't believe those for a minute. This was their only chance to face and knock off Canada, which did not have pros at the Olympics and was still boycotting the WC. Canada also had its strongest line-up ever, so the possibility of defeat was real, whatever squad the Soviets fielded. The change in roster was in my view a move to counter the quality of the Canadian, Czech and, also relevant, Swedish squads which would now include pros playing in North America such as Salming. The Mikhailov generation had lost to Canada in '72 and had just lost to the Czechs, so why not try something new. Finally, the tournament was to be played on the smaller ice surface, something the Soviet team was relatively inexperienced on in best-on-best competition. It stands to reason that they would have decided to go with the most speed they could put on the ice to counter the increased exposure of their players to hitting given the smaller confines of the rink. The Soviets lived and breathed strategy and tactics.
The Soviets blew out the Americans, as expected, after starting the tournament with a 5-3 loss to the Czechs, but after a 3-3 tie with Sweden complained about biased officiating (sound familiar?). Sweden later self-destructed by losing to Finland, putting them out of the final, while the Czechs edged Canada 1-0 in the penultimate game of the round-robin, gaining the first spot in the final. As a result, the Canada-Soviet game was for the other spot in the final, as the Czechs were already in. It was in effect a knockout semi-final and thus a crucial game. Russia fans seem to forget this.
I was at that game. Canada had an answer for everything the Soviets could throw at them and prevailed 3-1 in a game that really wasn't all that exciting because Orr was able to control the pace of the game whenever he wanted to. You really had to be there.
Thus, it was a Canada-Czech final and after a 6-0 whitewash for Canada in the first game to avenge the 1-0 shutout pitched by Dzurilla in the round-robin, the second game went to OT before Sittler ended it on a pass from Macdonald. Two Leafs -- who would have thunk that. And at the Forum to boot.
Based on the caliber of play I saw, the Czechs were deserving finalists along with Canada. It may have been the greatest Canada team to date, and the only one that included Orr, who was unfortunately playing his last games and was practically crippled.
Now listen up, Russophiles, and listen good: Canada handled the Czechs at that tournament relatively easily, winning in the final 2 games to 0, and the Czechs had just handled the Soviet team with a line-up that you could not dispute included all the best players. It therefore doesn't cut it to suggest the tournament doesn't count, especially when the national team didn't even make it to the final. It is pretty arrogant to ignore the Czechs altogether, which your line of reasoning does.
One other thing deserves mention which you never seem to remember. In alleging you didn't have your best players at this or that tournament, well that argument cuts both ways because the Soviet Union wasn't Russia. As Russia, you would not have had a bunch of players who played significant roles on those teams. Guys like Balderis for example, one the pillars of the late 70's, early 80's Soviet dynasty.
None of this has anything to do with the Challenge Cup, but I for one don't like to see people try to take an historic victory away from what was a truly great Canadian team.
Talking about 1981 now. Yes, I think what he was referring to was that Lafleur, and also Perreault by the way, were injured for much of the season and hadn't played basically all year to date. It should also be noted that Lafleur had finished a season in which he had not only been on the shelf but had started a steep downward trajectory in output, going from having more than 60 goals in previous seasons to the mid-20's.
I'm not going to rag on poor old Mike Liut. He never played at any other tournament but he's suffered enough.
Canadian fans always whine about Kompalla and Dombrowski, but fail to point out anything specific.
What?? If you want specifics, go read Sinden's book on the '72 series. There's a book full of specifics. I mean, Parise had Lady Byng penalty numbers all career and he was provoked so badly he almost took the guy's head off. These guys were just completely incompetent.
I went to several games in Canada that Dombrowski officiated. He couldn't skate, for one, being rather portly and elderly, and I often wondered how he could the play from back in other team's zone. He also looked like he was supremely indifferent to the fact there was a hockey game going on, and his calls reflected that, being more like random tweets in the space-time continuum than anything having to do with a game.
Baader, Kompalla were in another universe altogether in terms of incompetence, a class by themselves, a league of their own, a -- well, you get the picture. Remember that there were only two officials, period, in international play. Two. Think about how that would work today, where four competent officials still get a lot of things wrong. These two buffoons belonged to the no-contact school of hockey, whistling as an infraction anything that caused a body to fall down onto the ice. The Soviets learned fast. They had tremendous upper body strength and could take a dive whenever they needed a call. The fact that Dumb and Dumber never cottoned on to something so blatant drove the Canadians wild.
In addition, and this represents the clash of cultures, the Soviet, and indeed the European style at the time, was to adapt to this style of officiating by being very good at stickwork that was undetectable and at subtle interference and pick plays. Things like spearing and butt-ending were absolutely prohibited under the unwritten code of conduct in the NHL: engaging in such tactics could earn you a stick in the brain or worse. Anything remotely resembling that behaviour was deal with by dropping the gloves and resolving the matter man to man. If when we were watching a game with the Soviets we saw a Canadian player suddenly and seemingly without provocation go nuts on a Soviet, we knew what had just happened. The unpunished spearing and butt-ending by his Soviet check all the way down the ice had just driven the Canadian over the edge. For more details, again see Sinden's book, which contains numerous real-time anecdotes about this behaviour and how the Canadians had to adapt to it, and to the ghastly refereeing, in order to play any part of the game at full strength.
I am surprised that those of you who are not beneath attacking NHL officials as corrupt would when the shoe is on the other foot defend officials such as these bozos who were so demonstrably incompetent even apart from any question of whether they were corrupt. I know a good way to test this: how many of you would like to trade current international officials for these guys for a gold medal game? Hands up, please.
CSKA won a lot against elite NHL teams too. Most of the other Soviet teams also have a winning record playing in North America.
I have to disagree with your premise here. The Soviet teams that played NHL teams were club teams in name only. As a matter of substance, they were various iterations of the national team. CSKA was basically the national team with some deletions (e.g., Yakushev, Maltsev), and Wings of the Soviet was comprised of those national team members that had been so split off and the other elements of the national team or players that were rotated onto and off the national team: think Soviet Union A and Soviet Union B. For that reason alone, results in games against these Soviet "club" teams must be taken with a large grain of salt. Another factor that must be considered is that the NHL club teams of that era were heavily diluted both by rapid expansion and by the WHA. The caliber of play below the top teams like Montreal and Philadelphia fell off steeply. Several of the Soviets' opponents were expansion teams that still hadn't fought their way out of the league basement. Any notion of parity among NHL club teams was at that time wishful thinking.
A much more realistic barometer of the state of club competition between the Soviets and North American pro hockey, in my view, was the series between the "Soviet All-Stars" (in substance the national B team) and WHA club teams held in 1977-78 and 1978-79. Unlike any of the NHL games against Soviet sides, these games counted in the WHA standings, so there was skin in the game. In the 8 league games that the "Soviet All-Stars" played in 1977-78, the Soviets won 3, lost 4 and tied 1. Here's some trivia for you: Valeri Bragin, coach of the Russian WJC team, played on this Soviet squad.
The Soviets sent over their national B team again in 1978-79 (the WHA's last season) to play league games for points. This time the Soviet All-Stars fared better, winning 4, losing 1 and tying 1 in 6 games. This was a stronger squad on paper.
Around the same time that the national B team was playing WHA club teams the first time around in 1977-78, the Soviet Union national A team was having a series of its own against the Winnipeg Jets and other WHA club teams. The national A team swept 3 games against the Jets in Japan, all by close scores, while the Jets returned the favour by beating the Soviet Union 5-3 on home ice. As far as I know this is the only time a North American club team ever defeated the Soviet Union national team, as this was virtually the only series in which the Soviets put the Soviet Union national team so named against club competition in North America. The Soviet Union played 5 other WHA club teams during this tour and those games were, as might be expected, mismatches -- the Soviets swept the games by fairly lopsided scores, although the club teams did manage to score 14 goals against Tretiak in the 5 games.
It should be mentioned that WHA club teams also played the Soviet Union national team on two other occasions outside of North America: the 1976 and 1977 Izvestia tournament in Moscow. The Jets lost 6-4 in 1976 and the Quebec Nordiques lost 5-3 in 1977. The Jets did beat Finland and tied Sweden in 1976 while losing by a goal to the Czechs, so the Jets' record of 1-2-1 was competitive and respectable for a club team going head to head against elite national teams.
In 1979, the WHA adopted an All-Star game format whereby it pit its All-Stars against Moscow Dynamo. In a much-hyped three-game series, the WHA All-Stars swept all three All-Star games against Dynamo. The games were really fast-paced and skilled affairs. WHA club teams also won 2 of 3 exhibition games against Dynamo for a total of 5 wins and 1 loss in favour of the WHA.
There are other interesting examples of games against Soviet national teams or club teams that are below the radar because the Soviets also played Canadian junior teams and even university teams from time to time. These games were cash cows for a cash-starved Soviet program. In 1973 I went to a game between CSKA and the Toronto Marlboros, the Maple Leafs' junior team, at a packed Maple Leaf Gardens. It was a swashbuckling affair with the game being decided only in the last minute when the Soviets scored to break a 6-6 tie and escape by the skin of their teeth with a 7-6 win. That's right, one goal. More trivia for you: Bruce Boudreau, now coach of Ovechkin, Semin et al. with the Capitals, scored twice on Tretiak in that game and was the best player on the ice. Again, this was no club team: everybody, and I mean everybody, was on that Soviet side -- it was essentially the Summit Series roster.
The games against WHA club teams set above demonstrate the relative parity between Soviet and WHA club teams in meaningful (i.e. points producing) competition, which in my view represents a much better barometer for comparison than the pure exhibition games against NHL club teams. Considering how watered down the talent level was among WHA club teams given the number of teams at the time due to the seven-year existence of the rival leagues, it is not simply possible to portray these games as evidence of Soviet domination. The results are really nothing to crow about from a Soviet standpoint. At the conclusion of the 1979 season, most of the WHA teams disappeared when the league folded and a few teams were merged into the NHL. This eased the dilution of talent somewhat but the NHL was to remain diluted throughout the 1980's by an overabundance of teams relative to the number of world-class players. If the remaining WHA players had been concentrated into the remaining WHA teams and those teams had played the Soviet teams that year, the competition would have been much tougher for the Soviets. As it was, they only held their own against the WHA teams and lost convincingly to the All-Stars, just as WHA club teams -- except for the Jets -- lost convincingly to the Soviet national team aka Big Red Machine.