The Cold War on Ice
John Soares
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
University of Notre Dame
In the 1980s, international ice hockey legend Anatoli Tarasov—the architect of the
Soviet hockey program that had dominated Olympic and world championship hockey
since the early 1960s—visited Boston to speak at Northeastern University. That evening
Tarasov noticed an old foe in attendance. Bill Clearly, who was then the hockey coach
at Harvard University, had been a prominent but friendly rival of Tarasov’s decades
before. At the Squaw Valley Olympics in 1960, Tarasov coached the Soviet team while
Cleary was a star player for the U.S. squad that shocked the heavily favored Soviets
and won the nation’s first-ever Olympic hockey gold medal. At Northeastern, Tarasov
recognized Cleary and said, “My good friend Beel. I go to Siberia because of heem.”1
77
Hockey Looks Like Politics
For most Americans, especially those who pay little attention to ice hockey, a discussion
of “cold war hockey” conjures thoughts of the so-called miracle at Lake Placid, where
the United States stunned the Soviet Union by winning a gold medal in 1980. This
story played out at the close of a distressing decade highlighted by Watergate, Vietnam,
and oil crises—an era best symbolized by Washington’s inability to effectively address
the Iran hostage crisis or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Under such circumstances,
Americans who did not know one end of a hockey stick from the other happily celebrated
the United States’ victory. Newspaper accounts from the time are rife with quotes from
Americans celebrating “our” victory over the Soviets and the gold medal “we” won.
Adding to the sense of U.S. accomplishment were the realities of Olympic hockey.
In the 1970s and 1980s, when Olympic athletes were required to be amateurs, the
United States sent hockey teams composed of collegians and recent graduates—lineups
John Soares is a visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. He teaches the
history of U.S. sport, sport and the cold war, and U.S. national security policy. His recent publications
include articles on U.S.–Canadian border diplomacy in Diplomatic History and on Jimmy Carter’s Central
American policy in The Journal of Cold War Studies.
Copyright © 2008 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs
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John Soares
78
that were usually thrown together a few months before the games. In the Soviet Union,
the Central Army Sports Club served as the nucleus around which the national team
was built. All Soviet athletes were classified as amateurs, and many of the best hockey
players in the Soviet Union were designated as professional military officers, even
though they trained full-time in their sport and received compensation that placed
them among the elites in Soviet society.2
Understanding the propaganda value of Olympic victories, the Soviets structured
their elite league to ensure the national team’s success in international competition.
National team players who were not from the Central Army Club usually played for the
Moscow-based Spartak or Dinamo clubs (the latter was the club of the Soviet security
services). Many national team players trained year round with the members of their
national team unit, while the elite league schedules gave the national team adequate
time to prepare in advance of the world championships, Olympic tournaments, and
opportunities to compete with North American professionals.
This system afforded great competitive advantage to the Soviets, and they capitalized on it. Yet the advantage conferred by their squad of experienced professional players
was only part of the story. The Soviets built a unique style of play that was difficult for
foreigners to replicate in practice, making it nearly impossible for teams to prepare for
games against the Soviet Union. In 1963, the Soviet national team began a run unprecedented in world hockey, winning nine straight world or Olympic championships and
14 of the next 17.3 After its defeat at Lake Placid,
the Soviet Union resumed its world and Olympic dominance. It also competed successfully
on numerous occasions against the best North
American professionals. The Soviet national team
narrowly lost a highly competitive eight-game
series against Canadian stars from the National
Hockey League (NHL) in 1972 and decisively
whipped an all-star team from the upstart World
Hockey Association in 1974. Two Soviet clubs
touring NHL cities in 1975 and 1976 posted five
wins and a tie in eight games. A year before the
Lake Placid Olympics, the Soviets humiliated the
NHL All-Stars in the 1979 Challenge Cup series
at Madison Square Garden. In the decisive third game of that series, the Soviets played
their backup goaltender and posted a 6-0 win over the NHL All-Stars.4
After this period of absolute Soviet dominance, the U.S. hockey players who
headed to Lake Placid may have looked as though they belonged in the painting Spirit
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The Cold War on Ice
of ’76—bedraggled, poorly clothed, and under-equipped minutemen heading off to
battle a superior force. Meanwhile, the Soviet hockey team looked like the real Big Red
Machine, a product of the vaunted Red Army, aided by the KGB. A Soviet-produced
history of the Central Army hockey team proclaimed their hockey players to be “ideological warriors . . . at the leading edge of ideological struggle” who played “to give a
decisive rebuff to the diversions of bourgeois ideology.”5
And the Soviet hockey victories were genuine triumphs for communism. Unlike
other fields, such as ballet, classical music, and the hard sciences, in which Russia had
long traditions of greatness, Russians did not compete in international ice hockey until
after World War II. The unique Soviet hockey system was designed in large measure by
Russian patriot, Red Army officer, and true believer in communism Anatoli Tarasov.
Tarasov disdained suggestions that the Soviets hire Canadians to teach them hockey,
and instead decided to create a system of training techniques and an innovative style
of play that incorporated elements of Russian football (soccer) as well as ballet and science. He produced an approach to “collective hockey” that he believed was a practical
application of communist principles. Soviet Olympic and world hockey championships
were a product of the communist system that produced a startling transformation in
Russian sports.6
79
Surprising Friendships
Despite the ideological coloring to this sports competition, and the violence and occasional fights that marred U.S.–Soviet hockey games, the real story of cold war hockey
is one of much greater nuance and complexity. While the Soviets wanted to defeat
the “imperialists,” they often viewed the Americans in quite friendly terms, and the
Americans often reciprocated. As his later visit to Boston indicated, Tarasov developed
enduring friendships with U.S. coaches and players. He remained fond of Bill Cleary
despite Cleary’s role in upsetting the Soviet Union at Squaw Valley. Even more noteworthy, one of Tarasov’s players, Nikolai Sologubov, helped the United States achieve
that gold medal in 1960. Sologubov, the Soviet captain, was among the many Soviet
players who socialized with the Americans in the Olympic village. The Americans gave
Sologubov the nickname “Solly,” and Cleary’s younger brother Bob even called the
Soviet players “real friends,” saying, “They don’t talk about communism. Like us, they
talk about hockey, and girls.”7
Heading into the final day of the round-robin tournament, the Americans needed
a win to clinch the gold medal. The Soviets, who had lost to the United States the day
before, had been eliminated from gold medal contention. With the Americans trailing
Czechoslovakia after two periods, Solly visited the U.S. locker room and encouraged
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the Americans to use oxygen to try to overcome the effects of the altitude. Debate continues to this day over how many Americans used oxygen and how much it helped, but
the U.S. team rebounded in the third period to post a decisive 9–4 victory and claim
the gold medal. Afterwards, Solly was photographed with U.S. coach Jack Riley, both
men smiling happily in a photograph that appeared on page one of the next morning’s
New York Times.8
Tarasov himself played a role in the United States’ stunning silver medal at the
1972 Sapporo Games. At the 1971 world championships, he invited U.S. national
coach Murray Williamson to visit Moscow. Williamson made the trip in the summer
of 1971 and learned from the Russian coaching legend, helping to shape his training
strategies in preparation for the 1972 Games. Williamson’s team, one of the youngest
in U.S. Olympic history, needed to win a close game over Switzerland to even qualify
for the medal round. Yet the Americans nonetheless emerged with the nation’s only
Olympic hockey medal between 1960 and 1980. Tarasov even showed his regard for
Williamson during one pre-Olympic exhibition between the United States and the
Soviet Union: when the Soviets held an insurmountable lead after two periods, Tarasov
pointedly removed his best players from the game to reduce the humiliation inflicted
on his American rival. Williamson described Tarasov and himself as “close.”9
Tarasov later befriended Lou Vairo, a young U.S. coach who in 1984 had the
unenviable task of succeeding Herb Brooks as the U.S. Olympic coach. One Soviet
journalist later said that Vairo had been Tarasov’s “favorite student.”10 Even in the fall of
1983, when tension over the Grenada invasion, the shooting down of Korean Air Lines
flight 007, and the deployment of Pershing II missiles brought the United States and
the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, Vairo pointedly said he and Tarasov were
“very good friends.”11 Tarasov, who also wrote books that were translated into English
Hockey also provided a surprisingly du- for a North American readership, was genuinely interested
rable avenue to friendships between U.S. in making friends with Ameriand Russian players and coaches alike. cans. He regarded the world’s
hockey players as potential friends, praising the growing numbers of young hockey
players joining “our huge, beautiful, peaceful army of athletes.” Participation in sport,
he believed, helped people around the world to “live in peace and harmony.”12
The legacy of U.S.–Soviet hockey during the cold war is more complicated than
it would appear to anyone whose frame of reference is limited to Lake Placid. Undeniably, there were cases of conflict and confrontation in U.S.–Soviet hockey games, but
hockey also provided a surprisingly durable avenue to friendships between American
and Russian players and coaches alike. Even during periods of heightened cold war
the brown journal of world affairs
The Cold War on Ice
hostility, hockey players often found ways to build friendly ties. Hockey’s relationship
with cold war politics becomes more complex when two additional hockey powers are
considered: Czechoslovakia and Canada.
Czechs, Canadaians, and Anti-Sovietism on Ice
After the 1968 Soviet invasion, the people of Czechoslovakia found hockey to be one
of the few avenues through which they could defeat their Soviet overlords. These victories sometimes had political implications, as when the celebrations after a 1969 world
championship win over the Soviets triggered a political backlash and the tightening
of control in Czechoslovakia by the hard-line regime and the Soviet forces that were
helping it maintain order.13 The Soviets, for their part, were often frustrated by what
they saw as the ingratitude of a small nation they had rescued from the fascists and the
imperialists. The final morning at Squaw Valley, when Solly encouraged the Americans
to use oxygen to help in their rally over Czechoslovakia, demonstrated the potential
pitfalls of superpower détente for smaller and less powerful nations. The U.S.–Soviet
collaboration not only secured the gold medal for the United States, but also guaranteed
that the Soviet Union won the Olympic bronze medal, and the European championship, over Czechoslovakia.14
When the Americans won their silver medal at Sapporo, Japan, this again was a
case of the Americans and Russians working together at the expense of the Czechoslovaks. Fortified by their new training regimen influenced by Coach Williamson’s visit
with Tarasov, the United States shocked the Czechoslovakia, 5–1, in their medal-round
meeting. After defeating Poland in their last game, the Americans were in contention
for a medal pending the outcome of the Soviet–Czechoslovakia contest. The young
Americans watched that game but they did not cheer for the small, underdog nation
that had been invaded by their superpower adversary just a few years earlier. Instead,
the U.S. players cheered for their Soviet friends. The underdog Czechoslovaks suffered
a bitter defeat, which clinched the gold medal for the Soviets, knocked Czechoslovakia
down to bronze, and gave the silver medal to the United States.15
Canadians, meanwhile, were outraged at the success of Soviet efforts to take
international ownership of Canada’s national game. Adding to Canadians’ unhappiness was the fact that Canada was not permitted to use its best players at the world
championships. Failure to convince the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to
conduct open world championships in which professionals could compete led Canada
to withdraw from the IIHF in 1970. Canada refused to participate in world tournaments for most of the 1970s, as well as the 1972 and 1976 Olympics.16
Canada’s withdrawal did not mean that the Canadians were unwilling to compete
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82
with the best from other nations. When Pierre Elliot Trudeau became prime minister of
Canada he sought to use hockey in a diplomatic initiative to improve Canadian–Soviet
ties as part of a more general effort to strengthen Canada’s independence in international relations. These efforts bore some fruit, most notably in the eight-game Summit
Series of September 1972 that pitted the Soviet national team against Canadian all-stars
from the NHL, the top professional league in the United States and Canada. Some of
the greatest names in the NHL, including Phil and Tony Esposito, Ken Dryden, Yvan
Cournoyer, Serge Savard, Bobby Clarke, Stan Mikita, Guy LaPointe, and Frank and
Peter Mahovlich, represented Canada in what may have been the single most memorable
series in hockey history. Team Canada won four games, the Soviets three, and one was
tied. Canadian Paul Henderson scored the series-clinching goal with only 34 seconds
remaining in the final game.17
Subsequent efforts at détente hockey included a trip by Soviet clubs to North
America in 1975 and 1976. On that trip, the Central Army Club of Moscow, perennial
champions of the Soviet elite league and nucleus of the Soviet national team, played
a 3–3 tie in the legendary Montreal Forum against the Montreal Canadiens, who
won four consecutive Stanley Cups as NHL champions from 1976 to 1979. These
exchanges continued. In 1976, Canada hosted the first-ever Canada Cup tournament
in hockey, a tournament held roughly every four years for the remainder of the cold
war. The Canada Cup tournaments pitted the Soviet and Czechoslovakian national
teams, professional all-star teams from the United States and Canada, and teams from
nations like Sweden which combined NHL players with stars who still played at home.
Canada won the 1976 Canada Cup, led by the heroics of two future Hall of Famers
who had missed the 1972 Summit Series, Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr. In 1987, the
Canadians won another memorable Canada Cup tournament, led by Wayne Gretzky
and a then-emerging superstar named Mario Lemieux.18
But détente hockey had its dark side, and hockey—at least as played by Canadians—was not always well-suited for diplomacy. Europeans had long regarded
the Canadian style of play as rough to the point of barbarity. In 1960, the Canadian
ambassador in Stockholm wrote home that Canadian hockey players’ conduct in their
Olympic preliminary round game against Sweden had so outraged Swedes that it actually undermined Canadian diplomacy.19 In 1972, Team Canada’s conduct in the Summit Series struck some observers as thuggish to the point of caricature. One Canadian
player made throat-slitting gestures at his Soviet rivals, the coach threw a chair on the
ice, a team official got into a fight with Soviet militia in Moscow, one Canadian player
threatened to decapitate a game official with his stick, and Canadian player Bobby
Clarke—acting on instructions from the assistant coach—deliberately broke the ankle
of Soviet star Valery Kharlamov in the sixth game.20
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The Cold War on Ice
This is not to say that the Soviets were innocent victims of such barbarity. They
engaged in their own spearing, hooking, and other illegalities the North Americans
would deride as cheap shots. Perhaps the most notable was the kick Soviet captain Boris
Mikhailov delivered to the shins of Canada’s Gary Bergman. However, the combative
nature of hockey, especially as played in North America, and the pressure on Team
Canada to uphold professional credibility and national honor, made it certain that their
play would not meet the highest expectations of Canadian diplomacy.
This point was made again in the two weeks following the Montreal Canadiens–
Central Army game in Montreal, a game that displayed hockey at its finest. First, the
Central Army club visited Boston for a contest against the Bruins that was marred
by an incident again involving Soviet star Boris Mikhailov. Mikhailov shoved Bruins
goaltender Gilles Gilbert, and Boston’s Wayne Cashman responded with a slash across
Mikhailov’s midsection.21 It was even uglier just days later, when the Central Army club
visited Philadelphia for a match-up with the two-time Stanley Cup champion Flyers.
The Flyers were then at the pinnacle of their reign as the “Broad Street Bullies,” known
for fighting and otherwise trying to bludgeon opponents through brutality rather than
skill. While this characterization understates the number of highly skilled Flyers and the
tactical genius of their coach, Fred Shero, the Central Army–Flyers game was spoiled
when the Soviet team left the ice in the middle of the first period, outraged that no
penalty was called when Valery Kharlamov was flattened by a punishing check from
Flyers defenseman Ed Van Impe.22 Eventually the game resumed, but many in North
America—and the Soviet Union—were appalled by what they saw as the barbarity of
the Flyers.23 Again, any discernible diplomatic achievement was lost in the controversy
over the physical play of mostly Canadian players in the NHL.
Regrettably, it was not solely when professionals were involved that games reached
such a level of violence. At the 1987 world junior championships—an amateur level
of hockey where fights are virtually non-existent—the Canadian and Soviet teams engaged in a bench-clearing brawl. With the brawling players vastly outnumbering the
game officials, the referees could not control the situation, and the arena lights were
turned off in hopes of ending the fight—but to no avail. The Canadians, who had gone
into the game guaranteed a medal and still in contention for the championship, were
disqualified because of the incident.24
Friends . . . Within Limits
The violence in Canadian–Soviet hockey demonstrated the limitations inherent in using
such a violent sport for diplomatic purposes. At the same time, there were moments
of amicability between Canadians and Russians. For example, Nikolai Sologubov,
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84
the Soviet hockey captain who famously helped the United States at Squaw Valley,
befriended goaltender Seth Martin of the victorious Canadian team at the 1961 world
championships.25
Even more noteworthy were the enduring friendships built by U.S. and Soviet
players and coaches. The experiences of the Cleary brothers, Murray Williamson, and
Lou Vairo offer the most noteworthy examples, but there were others as well. Even the
United States’ 1980 victory inadvertently benefited from the friendships U.S. coaches
had built with their Soviet rivals. One of Murray Williamson’s former players, whom
he coached on the 1968 Olympic and the 1970 world tournament teams, was the U.S.
Olympic coach in 1980, Herb Brooks. After the United States won gold at Lake Placid,
Brooks inscribed a memento for Williamson: “Your influence as a teammate and coach
helped produce this victory.” Still, that memento also demonstrated the limitations of
détente hockey: Brooks wrote his note on a political cartoon that had appeared in the
Los Angeles Times the morning after the United States clinched gold at Lake Placid.
Evoking the image of U.S. soldiers planting the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo
Jima, it showed U.S. hockey players planting a stick in the ice, with a U.S. flag waving
from it.26 While the Soviets had befriended Williamson, they were seen by many other
Americans as the villains in a cold war morality play whose defeat by the U.S. team
was cause for an outpouring of national rejoicing.
Conclusion
Hockey offers useful insight into international affairs during the cold war, illustrating
both the conflict and peace making possibilities in the U.S.–Soviet relationship. National prestige was at stake in cold war sports contests, but these games were also a test
of two social systems. The national hockey programs in both the United States and the
Soviet Union closely paralleled social structures in their respective countries. The Soviet
program was a government-directed operation organized to transform the nation’s best
players into a perennial championship team. The U.S. program, by contrast, relied on
volunteers and private sponsors, and was so lacking in consistent organization that one
year two hockey teams arrived at the Olympics claiming to be the U.S. team.
The connection between sport and society meant that U.S.–Soviet hockey games
were a form of competition between the two social systems that was easily measurable
and immediately understandable. Unlike economic measures, which could be complicated, unfold over long periods of time, and rely on unverifiable assumptions, sports
results were simple and clear cut. Unlike military forces, which fortunately never met
head-to-head in an all-out contest, hockey teams met regularly: quadrennially at the
Olympics and almost every year at world tournaments. Hockey, in other words, was
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The Cold War on Ice
not just a (comparatively) peaceful form of proxy warfare in which national prestige
was at stake. It also was a contest between two social systems whose outcome had
political ramifications. The Soviets could tout their victories as proof that their social
system was superior at identifying and cultivating their peoples’ skills and talents. The
implications of this superiority extended beyond the ice, as the Soviets could claim
their system more assiduously developed the talents and skills of physicists, engineers,
ballet dancers, and others.
In theory, the U.S. victory at Lake Placid might have fueled claims that the U.S.
triumph over long odds and innumerable competitive disadvantages demonstrated
the validity of a social system predicated upon freedom. In practice, though, most
U.S. players and coaches in the cold war years looked upon their Soviet rivals less as
representatives of a hostile system and more
Hockey illustrated the Soviet system’s
as competitors whose skills and expertise
they sought to match. Unlike their Soviet lavishing of resources on endeavors
counterparts, the Americans did not receive that looked impressive but ultimately
indoctrination and political pep talks from
representatives of the state and the ruling contributed little to the cold war.
party—or even the Chamber of Commerce and American Legion. In this regard,
hockey, like other Olympic sports, illustrated the Soviet system’s lavishing of resources
and focus on endeavors that looked impressive but ultimately contributed little to the
outcome of the cold war. In the end, all of the Soviet Union’s Olympic medals could
not compensate for its economic shortcomings and political oppression.
Those who look to the past for lessons to help with the present should consider
what cold war hockey suggests for U.S.–Russian relations today. Tarasov’s friendship
with the Americans, and the willingness of Soviet players and coaches to help the United
States even at the expense of Russia’s Czechoslovakian allies, demonstrate a Russian
desire to be respected as the superpower equal of the United States. This hunger for
international prestige had deep roots in Russian history; for centuries Russian tsars tried
to overcome their nation’s perceived inferiority to European powers. With the communist revolution in 1917 and the concern about capitalist encirclement influencing
Soviet leaders for decades, the quest for recognition as a cold war superpower became
especially pronounced. Soviet hockey officials seem to have particularly enjoyed being
atop the Olympic medal stand at Sapporo, with the United States finishing second and
the smaller Czechoslovaks behind the two superpowers. This Soviet desire for status
explains why Kremlin political leaders enjoyed the recognition of their parity with the
United States in the Statement of Basic Principles, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
and other détente-era accomplishments.
Concern about Russia’s place in the world is arguably even more pronounced since
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John Soares
the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia lost size and population when the Soviet Union
broke up, Germany reunified under the auspices of the pro-Western Federal Republic,
and a number of former Warsaw Pact allies have joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Under the circumstances, some believe Russia’s international importance
has fallen off considerably. This apparent loss of prestige means today’s Russian leaders
may be even more interested in international recognition of their country’s greatness.
Evidence of this can be seen in hockey today: in June 2007, the NHL reached agreements with federations governing hockey in various European nations to set the transfer
fees NHL clubs may pay to acquire players from these countries. The Russians, alone
among the European hockey federations, refused to sign the player transfer agreement.27
This transfer agreement makes sense for other federations, but the Russians do not want
their top league to be treated merely as a farm system for NHL clubs. This attitude
fits with Vladimir Putin’s foreign policies, which made clear that Russia will be treated
as a superpower and the equal of the United States, or else the Kremlin will continue
to cause headaches for Washington. But cold war hockey, like present-day diplomacy,
demonstrates that the Soviets want to be respected as the United States’ equal—and
good things can happen for both sides when Americans understand this. W
A
86
Notes
1. John Powers, “Road to Salt Lake; The Little Site That Could The 1960 Winter Games Were a Major
Success For a Miniature Ski Resort Called Squaw Valley,” Boston Globe, 20 January 2002.
2. For more on Soviet hockey, and Soviet sport generally, see Robert F. Baumann, “The Central Army
Sports Club (TsSKA): Forging a Military Tradition in Soviet Ice Hockey,” Journal of Sport History 15, no.
2 (1988): 151–166; James Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in
Russia and the USSR (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977); James Riordan, “Playing
to New Rules: Soviet Sport and Perestroika,” Soviet Studies 42 (1990): 133–145; and Yuri Brokhin The Big
Red Machine: The Rise and Fall of Soviet Olympic Champions (New York: Random House, 1978).
3. “IIHF World Championships,” www.iihf.com/iihf-home/history/all-medalists/men.html; and
“Olympic Ice Hockey Tournaments, Men,” www.iihf.com/iihf-home/history/all-medalists/olympics/men.
html.
4. “International ‘Open’ Events: NHL Players and Teams Versus European Opponents Since 1972,” in
Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Hockey League, ed. Dan Diamond, 2nd ed. (Kingston,
NY: Total Sports Publishing, 2000), 505–507; and Parton Keese, “Hockey a la Russe Next on Program,”
New York Times, 23 December 1975, 21.
5. Quoted in Baumann, “The Central Army Sports Club,” 163.
6. For Tarasov’s explanation of how he built his program, see Anatoli Tarasov, Road to Olympus (Toronto:
Pocket Books, 1972).
7. Quoted in Bill Wallace, “Opinion: First Olympic Hockey Miracle Men Are Worth Remembering,”
Bridge News, 29 February 2000.
8. Gladwin Hill, “Russian Tip Helps US Win Olympic Hockey,” New York Times, 29 February 1960.
9. Details about 1972 US Olympic team and Murray Williamson’s earlier visit to Moscow are found in
Tom Caraccioli and Jerry Caraccioli, Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team
(Champaign, IL: SportsPublishing, 2006). Quote from Williamson about Tarasov on page 38.
10. Vsevelod Kukushkin quoted in Mike Wise, “Olympics: The Correspondent; Telling Soviets of
the brown journal of world affairs
The Cold War on Ice
Miracle Was More of a Nightmare,” New York Times, 18 February 2002.
11. Neil Amdur, “Thaw In Cold War,” New York Times, 10 December 1983.
12. Tarasov, Road to Olympus, 17.
13. Alvin Shuster, “Aeroflot Office Burned in Prague,” New York Times, 29 March 1969; Bernard
Gwertzman, “Moscow Says Prague Allowed ‘Anti-Soviet Slander’ in Protest,” New York Times, 1 April
1969, 6; Alvin Schuster, “Anti-Soviet Riot of Czechs Brings New Press Curbs,” New York Times, 3 April
1969, 1; and Joe Pelletier, “Where Were You In ’69?: Czech Victory Surpasses 1972 Dramatics,” Society
of International Hockey Research Journal 6 (2002): 66–67.
14. Because the 1960 European championship was based on final standings at the Olympics, even
games against North American teams counted in the standings. For more details, see Final Report, VIII
Olympic Winter Games, Squaw Valley California, 1960 (California Olympic Commission, n.d.), 123–135;
and United States 1960 Olympic Book: Quadrennial Report of the United States Olympic Committee (New
York: U.S. Olympic Association, 1961), 202–206.
15. “Soviet Six Captures Olympic Title, U.S. Finishes 2d: Czechs Lose, 5 to 2,” New York Times, 13
February 1972; Official Report, The XI Olympic Winter Games, Sapporo 1972 (Sapporo: The Organizing
Committee for the XIth Olympic Winter Games, n.d.), 482-485; 1972 United States Olympic Book (New
York: United States Olympic Committee, 1972), 260–263, 314315.
16. Donald Macintosh and Donna Greenhorn, “Hockey Diplomacy and Canadian Foreign Policy,”
Journal of Canadian Studies 28, no. 2 (1993): 96–112.
17. Scott Morrison, The Days Canada Stood Still: Canada vs. USSR 1972 (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson,
1989) and Ken Dryden with Mark Mulvoy, Face-off At the Summit (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973).
18. “International ‘Open’ Events,” 505–507;
19. Macintosh and Greenhorn, “Hockey Diplomacy and Canadian Foreign Policy,” 99. The two teams
met again in the medal round, without apparent incident.
20. These points are put together visually in Canadian filmmaker Brett Kashmere’s video essay, “Valery’s
Ankle,” in which he argues that the Canadians’ most distasteful behavior in the Summit Series has been
purged from the Canadian national memory of a series that is widely celebrated as a true national triumph.
See “Valery’s Ankle,” dir. Brett Kashmere, digital video, 2006.
21. Robin Herman, “Soviet Six Tops Bruins, 5-2,” New York Times, 9 January 1976.
22. Robin Herman, “Russians Stage Walkout During 4-1 Hockey Loss to Philadelphia,” New York
Times, 12 January 1976.
23.For an example of the outrage, see Dave Anderson, “A Hockey Lesson for Dr. Kissinger,” New York
Times, 12 January 1976.
24. This incident was the subject of a book recently published in Canada. See Gare Joyce, When The Lights
Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey’s Cold War and Changed The Game (Anchor Canada, 2007).
25. Gyle Konotopetz, “The Game of Their Lives: Golden Memories of ’61 Live On With Smoke Eaters,” Calgary Herald, 2 May 1993.
26. For a picture of the cartoon bearing Brooks’ inscription, see Caraccioli and Caraccioli, Striking
Silver; the image appears in the photo section after page 106. The original appeared in Los Angeles Times,
25 February 1980.
27. “European Federations, Leagues Ratify New 4-Year Transfer Agreement; Russia Holds Out,” Associated Press Worldstream, 13 July 2007.
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