Well the US beat both teams Canada lost to.
Which you listed as Canada's most important victory. That and the Canadian team being out of shape and Clarke resorting to a cheap shot taints that accomplishment somewhat doesn't it?
And Clarke's shot to Kharlamov was the only cheap shot in that series. Right. There were cheap shots on both sides every game. Canada ran Tretiak in Vancouver. The Soviets were guilty of slew foots and plenty of stick work. Clarke's shot on Kharlamov gets vilified because a) the victim was the Soviets' star forward and b) the purpetrator was Bobby Clarke. If it's Ron Ellis on one of the Soviet third liners, nobody ever mentions it again.
There's no tainting in 1972. To march into Moscow, against an opponent that proved it was on a similar plateau, and win the last three games to win the series (including rally from a 5-3 deficit in the final period of the final game) is absolutely incredible. It's not like it was easy in Moscow - Canadian players would receive phone calls at all hours of the night.
That's what made 1972 the greatest event in hockey history - it was essentially the first best-on-best ever. It was a series, not a best-of-one, and it was played in both countries. There has never been hockey as intense, passionate or dramatic as 1972. And in the end, there has never been an event in hockey that changed the hockey landscape as much. The true impact of the Miracle on Ice is mostly contained to the U.S. It really didn't have much of a long-term impact in the USSR, or Finland, or Sweden.
Summit shattered the myth of outright Canadian hockey supremacy. Hell, Game 1 in Summit did that. The next seven games reinforced that reality. It was a wake-up call for Canada, it was a shining moment for the USSR (even in defeat) and it showed the rest of the world that Canada wasn't the only true hockey superpower.