Five years ago, in September 2017, Canadian veterans arrived in Moscow to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the 1972 Canada-USSR Ice Hockey Super Series, which opened a window to the world for many Soviet people and heralded the possibility of easing. At the invitation of Canadians, stick collector and now Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov and sports commentator Mikhail Melnikov, we went to talk informally in a bar with hockey players who meant a lot, if not all, in our Soviet childhood.
The future laureate took with him a pair of personalized clubs – always stamped with the player’s name – from his fascinating collection. Melnikov was trembling in a jacket with the symbols of the Montreal Canadiens, which we have admired since the 1970s – we never rooted for someone like him in childhood, perhaps only for Dynamo (Riga) and Helmut Balderis.
In the absence of the main star – Phil Esposito, who was detained by a hurricane in Florida – the communication genius became Pete, the author of the 20th number of this team and a stylish goal against Tretyak in the second game in Toronto. mahovlich Little M from Montreal, who is ironically nicknamed because Big M’s younger brother is Frank Mahovlich and he is 195 centimeters tall, happily communicated with us and took a photo with his arms around our shoulders. And then his gaze fell on Muratov’s sticks, and a kind of light shone in his eyes, like headlights in the dark – he suddenly traveled back in time: he recognized his cane! At this point, the artist dominated him—Pete pretended to take the stick with him, wrapped it under his blue club jacket, and gently pressed the Canadian maple leaf into his polo shirt. Then he signed…
And in 1972 we got all eyes on Little M, a man-mountain throwing KGB stomps off a bus; Taking back Canadian hockey player Alan Eagleson, who was running on the ice in the last game of the series, from the Soviet police when the red light did not turn on outside the Tretyak goal after another goal by Canada; Being there right on the ice of 1972, having seen and felt history itself, maybe with this stick in hand… He was lucky to feel the nickname of his partner on that team and his Montreal partner Ivan Cournoyer, “That’s ten times more than winning the Stanley Cup,” he said. better.” Mahovlich has held the Stanley Cup four times. He and Cournoyer – one big and the other very short – were named Montreal’s best players in the December 31, 1975 match against CSKA Moscow, dubbed by hockey writer Todd Deno the greatest game in hockey history. That evening at the Montreal “Forum” they shook hands and stood up in an embrace with the best of the army team, Vladislav Tretyak, and to be honest, it drew the game for us. And now Little M, with his hands playing in line with the great Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt in Montreal, has broken the club’s record for points scored in one NHL season and has carefully embraced us – a descendant of god. Olympus for mortals only.
And now all this is a fact that has disappeared. Probably none of the veterans will come to Russia again. In 1972, men from different (sometimes literally) corners of Canada, gathered under the country’s flag, hating the “communists” who opposed them, suddenly saw the same men as themselves in our men. The same thing happened with Soviet hockey players and even officials who felt the mood to soften, developing a stormy organizational activity, sometimes even well. On the other side of the midline were humans – they had no horns and hooves. Everything was completely different from what was shown in the movie “Legend No. 17” – even in texture (this is a separate conversation), but in mood. Hockey players were ready to fight. But the way children fight somewhere in Khoroshevka, played by Boris Mikhailov and Zhenya Mishakov. And in 1972, Zhenya, a native of the village of Nikitkino, Moscow Region, challenged Rod Gilbert, who was born in Montreal, but in the family of a blacksmith, to a fist fight. Mishakov, who went abroad frequently after 15 years and had his knees treated there thanks to Canadian veterans, asked Gilbert why he did not continue the fight. “You would have killed me,” replied the striker, nicknamed the ranger. And that’s right – Mishakov was rewarded with the phrase: “I hit twice – on the cover of the coffin” … Both Gilbert and Mishakov, like many other participants in the Super Series, now the world …
It was normal to talk back then, hockey players who punched holes in the Iron Curtain with their sticks were not allowed after the Super Series ended in Moscow. At the farewell feast, they drank only champagne and dispersed. The legendary goalkeeper Ken Dryden, who wrote a book about the Serie, later kidnapped his translator – he disappeared somewhere. Of course, it did not disappear by chance.
Still, it was a way of keeping “peace in the world”. And most importantly, it worked. Including hockey. And hockey was used consciously – as evidenced not by the sport itself (it is also full of intrigues and twists), but by political history.
The establishment of relations between the USSR and Canada followed a separate path, paralleling the date of holding the first summit meeting between Brezhnev and Nixon. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau pursued a completely independent policy, which the same Nixon called him a donkey. In May 1971, Trudeau made an official visit to Moscow with his young wife of 22, Margaret, the future mother of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and met with his Soviet counterpart, Alexei Kosygin. Then the head of the Canadian government said the historic words: “Let our best players play with your best players without any preconditions.”
Gorbachev’s future ally, Alexander Yakovlev, who was exiled as ambassador to Canada, confirmed the importance of Kosygin’s diplomacy in one of the interviews: Once in the history of the Union, Kosygin went to Canada on a visit. He returned from there with very good impressions.
The Canadian Prime Minister at the time, Pierre Trudeau, did not specifically blame us for human rights violations, but on the contrary advocated expanding relations. Kosygin’s daughter became friends with Trudeau’s wife, they began to correspond and even called her second son, Margaret Trudeau, on the advice of a new friend, Alexander. More precisely, Sasha: asked to call our embassy and find out which minor this name exists. However, I do not know why, but all three sons of Trudeau have Russian names – Ustin [Джастин. – А.К.], Sasha and Mikhail. So, while the idea of the match was already discussed with might and main, Kosygin was directly involved in it and always accepted me with great preparation, although he had never done it before.
Alexei Kosygin’s trip to Canada in October 1971 turned out to be a fundamentally important event, confirming his intention to play at the highest level. Kosygin toured half of Canada and encountered rallies demanding that scavengers be allowed into Israel. Hanging on the shoulders of the Soviet prime minister, “Freedom to Hungary!” He survived the attack of a Hungarian immigrant shouting. The victim was just a jacket button. Among other things, on October 22 in Vancouver, Kosygin participated in the NHL game the Vancouver Canucks and the Montreal Canadiens. The match was very lively, with Montreal winning with a score of 6:0.
Then he met with Henri Richard, the head of the USSR Council of Ministers and his daughter Lyudmila Gvishiani (she worked in the central apparatus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that year and served as the first lady on her father’s trips). , “legend #9” Maurice Richard’s brother and then team captain. Henri showed the Soviet chief how to keep the club…
Six months later, on April 18, 1972, during the World Championships in Prague, hockey officials on both sides agreed to hold the Series. And then, with intensive correspondence between the Sports Committee, the international department of the Central Committee and the propaganda department, active preparations began – an opportunity arose to show the whole world organizational brilliance, and the Soviet leadership successfully used it, after which it expanded the accumulated experience. To organize a hugely successful ice hockey world championship in Moscow in 1973.
That’s how it was done half a century ago – a successful combination of humanitarian and official contacts. Now even surviving veterans will not be able to meet, and hockey in Russia has been dropped from international sports competitions for some time – the last thing imaginable in sports. It is unlikely that little M will ever see the cane he wants to buy from Muratov’s collection.
As Le Journal de Quebec puts it, outstanding defender Serge Savard recently celebrated his 50th series’ anniversary, partly due to fundraising from one of the universities in favor of students, partly in memory of Guy Lafleur, who died this year. In 1972, there are six of them in the uniforms of the same team: Marcel Dionne, the main intellectual of Canadian hockey Ken Dryden (although at that time all his games were sitting in reserve, the star rose later), Guy Lapointe (Savard’s partner), Yvan Cournoyer, Savard ‘ himself and Pete Mahovlich.
Judging by the photo, the 75-year-old Little M is in good shape. He had a beard and looked like Hemingway.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.