How it was №1635 13.02.2000 (2000)

Hockey super series "USSR-Canada", 1972.

In Canada, the super series of 1972 in the very popular on the eve of 2000, polls were called the event of the century.

It would seem that so many years have passed, in the stands of the ice arenas, not one generation of fans has changed, but as it turned out, even now no one needs to explain what it meant to our countries, and for the entire hockey world in 1972.

By this time, the USSR team became the world champion nine times in a row, three times in a row - the Olympic champion.

These fantastic successes were connected, first of all, with the names of great coaches: Anatoly Tarasov and Arkady Chernyshev.

After the victory at the Olympics in Sapporo, they started talking seriously about the idea that Tarasov had been hatching for years: about a meeting of Soviet hockey players with Canadian professionals.

Not the least role in the organization of competitions played and personal love of Leonid Brezhnev to hockey.

Canada was excited, but Soviet players were judged very low there, and even ordinary people thought that our hockey players would not be able to To resist their stars and Canadians can easily win the whole series in a row, because our athletes are "just lovers".

Journalist Boris Levin and participants in the games of the series, the legends of Soviet sport Vladislav Tretyak and Alexander Yakushev, talk about how amateurs were amazed Professionals at the very heart of the first game, held at the famous Canadian sports arena "Forum" in Montreal.

The USSR defeated Canada with a devastating score and made the players and coaches of the Canadian team think hard.

To discuss the further heat of the passions, fragments of the interview of Canadian stars were added: Bobby Hull, Ivan Cournoyer, Phil Esposito and Frank Makhovlich recall, How wrong in the assessment of Soviet hockey players, how difficult the result was the battle for victories, including in the second series of games in Moscow, at the stadium in Luzhniki.

It was then that the famous phrase of the Soviet sports commentator Nikolai Ozerov sounded: "We do not need such hockey!" The actions of Canadians gave the impression that they had come not to play, but to fight, not for life, but for death.

If the Soviet athletes tried to show respect for the enemy, the primary goal of the Canadian guests was to be rehabilitated for losing at home At home, so they easily crossed the line between cruelty and cruelty, sparing neither themselves, nor athletes, nor judges.

Before that nobody in Luzhniki had seen anything like this.

Additionally added fuel to the fire and the behavior of hockey players in the hotel "Intourist", according to the administrator of Galina Alekseeva.

The program includes footage of the chronicle of US President Richard Nixon's visit to Moscow, interviews with Canadian fans on the streets of Montreal, fragments of matches Soviet national team and rewarding at the Olympics in Sapporo, fragments of the games of the super series on September 2 and 28, 1972, including the final goal.