"paul_patskou" <Paul_Patskou@...> wrote:
>I think a great source for correct information
>are the newspaper accounts of the time. These
>stories don't have the often repeated stories
>that weren't exactly accurate.

I haven't got any newspapers from 1972 but I can check out what they
wrote about the games in the Swedish Hockey Annual from that year at
the library. The accounts in those Annuals are usually very detailed
and based on contemporary news reports.

>I don't think the Team Canada coaching staff
>made much of an attempt to show their players
>how good the Soviets were. An example is that
>Sinden foolishly showed the players the 1958
>'Go Dunnies Go' film from the Worlds in Oslo.
>That was 14 years prior. I often thought that
>since Sinden received the gold medal in that
>film, he might have wanted his team to see it.
>A better example would have been to show the
>game between the Soviets and the Canadian
>National team in late 1969 before it was disbanded.
>Kharlamov scores a skilled goal and Tretiak
>is playing well in net. Ken Dryden was on the
>bench watching as the spare goalie. That tape
>was available at the time - so were the 1972
>World Championship and Olympic games.

I checked another sports annual (with much less info) and they
expressed their disappointment that the Canadians had made such bad
preparations before the Summit series and the games vs Sweden. The
writer (Lennart Wrethagen) also suggested that an actual club from
the NHL like the Bruins or the Rangers might have played better and
tighter than the selected team did.

>Thanks for the info on Sterner - that
>makes things clearer. The only other
>info I found was that Sterner missed
>curfew one night and was given his
>release by the Cougars. Sounded strange
>to me.

But it's also a fact that Ulf Sterner often was involved in
conflicts during his time as a player and more than once did he
leave an assignment for some reason.

>As for Esposito, he played on "Team Ugly" in
>1977. The worst offender on that team was
>Wilf Paiement and there were a few others
>worse than Esposito. It was a quite an
>embarassing display of violence. A number of
>those games exist on tape and I think its best
>that they never get rebroadcast. I didn't like
>Esposito much before the '72 series but I have
>to say that the greatest and most determined
>leadership that any hockey player ever
>displayed was Esposito in the last few games
>in Moscow, particularly game 8.

In fairness to Espo, it's true that the Sports Annual I mentioned
above pointed him out as the MVP of the Summit Series and Wrethagen
was also impressed at his skills both as an individual and as a
member of the team. The 1977 Worlds had yet to come...

However, it's also worth mentioning that in 1979, Anders Hedberg
were praising Espo when they were playing together (or at least in
the same club) in the Rangers.