Unofficially,
it's called The Embarrassment. There aren't any books
about it. No one issued any cards to commemorate it.
In fact, you can barely find any record of it.
It
was the best of three 1979 Challenge Cup series between
a team of NHL All-Stars and the Soviet National team.
The international showdown preempted the NHL's regularly
scheduled 1978-79 All-Star Game.
The
Challenge Cup was billed rightfully as the ultimate
showdown. The NHL drew on its finest talent - whether
Americans, Canadians or Swedes - for the unprecedented
confrontation against hockey's version of the Bug
Red Machine.
The
league iced an incredible array of talent - Mike Bossy,
Guy Lafleur, Gilbert Perreault, Bryan Trottier, Larry
Robinson, Bobby Clarke, Bob Gainey, Denis Potvin,
Darryl Sittler, and Serge Savard, to mention a few.
Who could've imagined this Hall of Fame collection
of talent would come up empty?
The
Soviets meanwhile were unknown to most hockey fans.
Still the line-up included Hall f Fame goaltender
Vladislav Tretiak, right-winger Boris Mikhailov, Valery
Kharlamov, and Vladimir Petrov. Future NHLers, Sergei
Makarov and defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov also manned
the Soviet squad. Makarov contributed a goal and two
assisted in the three games, while an injury forced
Fetisov to sit out.
Sure,
the Soviets were talented, but no one expected the
NHL to lose. Instead of celebrating a decisive victory
and winning global bragging rights, the NHL'ers wrung
their hands as they watched the Soviets clinch the
Challenge Cup with a 6-0 victory in the third and
final game.
After
losing the opener 4-2, the Soviets rallied from a
two-goal deficit to win the second game, 5-4. Then
they put on a clinic in the 6-0 clincher.
The
Russians outscored the NHL's best skaters, 13-8, through
three games, and held the league All-Stars scoreless
through the final 4 ½ periods. The comrades meanwhile
registered nine unanswered goals. They limited the
NHL'ers to just 31 shots in the final 91 minutes.
The
NHL had few excuses, especially in game 3. The Challenge
Cup was played on an NHL-size ice surface (which was
smaller than the Russians were used to), with an NHL
referee in two of the three games, in front of an
NHL crowd and scheduled on NHL terms.
"We
all felt the Russians had a big disadvantage because
of the ice surface and the home ice," says Hall of
Fame left winger Bob Gainey. Still, by series end,
the hockey Gods had defected to behind the iron curtain.
"We
got blown out," recalls Darryl Sittler. "I just remember
when we were defeated as soundly as we were in the
6-0 game, how demoralizing it was. We just took it
for granted for so many years that we were the best."
The
Canadian-dominated NHL squad couldn't believe what
had happened. After all, hadn't Canadians invented
hockey? The Russians? They'd only been playing since
World War 2.
The
unexpected drama became more and more logical as the
series progressed. It took just 16 seconds in game
1 for the NHL ALL-Stars to unravel the apparent mystery
of the Soviet National Team. After a month of trying
to figure out what the secretive Soviets were up to,
Lafleur scored the first time he touched the puck.
After snaring Clarke's pass, the Montreal Canadiens'
superstar swooped down on Tretiak, put one fake on
the goal, then another fake and finally shot for the
goal.
Bossy,
a New York Islanders sophomore who soon became as
pure a sniper as the game had seen, made it 2-0 before
the game was seven minutes old.
"I've
never seen a dressing room so up," recalls former
Islander Clark Gillies about the first intermission.
While NHL'ers were on top of their game, the Soviets
weren't.
"Poorest I've seen 'em play," said Boston Bruins general
manager Harry Sinden after the game. "They made bad
passes, mishandled the puck many times…I've never
seen them pass the puck so badly."
Heading
into game 2, the NHL was confident of meeting the
standards they set in beating the Soviets in the opener.
"The Soviets for a long while had this sort of mystique
to them," said NHL captain Bobby Clarke prior to the
game. "That's all wearing away as we play them more
often and we become more familiar with their play.
Sure, the strong rivalries are there, but our players
are feeling more at ease. In the past, we would be
wondering what was up their sleeves, wondering when
they were going to unleash their secret play. Hat
was the mystique."
Clarke
should have never appeared so confident, and he should
have heeded a warning issued by NHL General manager
Bill Torry that turned out to be all too prophetic.
"You
wait and see, the Russians can adjust. They're in
this to be the best." And adjust, they did.
The
NHL buzzed to a 4-2 lead in the second period of Game
2, thanks mostly to Ken Dryden's goaltending. But
the Russians unfurled a performance that was vastly
different from the opener. This time, their passing
worked and they flooded the offensive zone, badgering
the NHL's defensemen who were unable to generate passes
to start plays. "They fore checked the hell out of
us in our own end," says Clarke. In fact it seemed
we played the entire game in our own end. They were
intense. They knocked us off the puck every chance
they got. They were simply better than we were.
With
the Soviets down by two, the game seemed to turn when
Colorado Rockies defenseman Berry Beck took a boarding
penalty for smashing Aleksandr Skvortsov into the
glass. Skvortsov's helmet had flown off, and he slumped
to the ice. Referee Viktor Dombrovsky, the only Soviet
official employed in the three game series called
the two minute penalty. On the powerplay, Mikhailov
scored. Forty-five seconds later, Sergei Kapustin
tied the game with 17:47 on the clock.
A
goal assisted by Makarov untied the knot just 91 seconds
into the third period. The NHL never scored again.
Game
3 was no contest. The Soviet played as close to a
perfect game as any team could, beating the NHL in
all fundamental facets of hockey. After a scoreless
first period, Mikhailov began the assault, beating
goalie Gerry Cheevers at 5:47 of the second period.
Taking a 2-0 lead into the third period, the USSR
scored four times in a six minute span to complete
the annihilation. Making matters worse, backup goalie
Vladimir Myshkin earned the shut-out stopping all
24 NHL shots.
Sergei
Makarov remembers the Soviets joyous celebration.
"We were very happy. It wads the first time we played
against an NHL All-Star team. I have a lot of good
memories from that trip." Outclassing the NHL, the
Soviet Union captured the unofficial world championship.
No longer could the NHL profess the Stanley Cup to
be the symbol of world supremacy. Instead, the Stanley
Cup was relegated to they symbol of North American
hockey supremacy, period.
"We
cant' say anymore that hockey is ours, " Serge Savard
said in the aftermath. "We have to start teaching
our young players the fundamentals again."
Series
such as the Challenge Cup now are a thing of the past.
The last time the NHL All-Stars and the Soviets met
was 1987 at Quebec City, splitting the two-game Rendez-Vous
series.
The
next season, Soviets began to trickle into the NHL.
Now it's a flood with more than 200 Soviets on this
side of the Atlantic. Fifteen years ago, most North
Americans believed the hockey here was better. While
the results of the Challenge Cup didn't change everyone's
opinion, it definitely opened some eyes. It certainly
opened the eyes of the NHL, which still would love
to forget about The Embarrassment.
