2
Brad Marchand has to break a Russian's ankle and Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson must charge the announcer's booth for the Super Series to resemble the 1972 Summit Series.
The eight-game Super Series between Canadian and Russian teenagers opening next Monday in Ufa, Russia, commemorates the 35th anniversary of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and what was then the Soviet Union.
That Summit Series was about more than just hockey. It was a clash of political ideologies in a Cold War climate that no longer exists.
The distrust each country felt for the other was evident in several incidents, including series organizer Alan Eagleson barrelling towards the announcer's booth in Moscow, to make sure Canada's tying goal in Game 8 wasn't discounted, and getting into a scuffle with the Soviet soldiers en route.
Related Articles
On the ice, it was a hockey war. Bobby Clarke deliberately slashed Valery Kharlamov's ankle and broke it in Game 6.
It would be a tall order for this Super Series of under-20 players to replicate that drama.
After all, these players were born 16, 17 and 18 years after Paul Henderson scored the iconic winning goal for Canada.
But Canadian head coach Brent Sutter, who was a Grade 5 student in Viking, Alta., when he watched the series on television at school, doesn't believe his players feel disconnected from 1972.
"I think the kids will eventually clue in and catch onto it. They're already asking a lot of questions," he said. "They want us to put a tape together of the 1972 series so they can see it before we go over.
"I think their parents and agents have been talking to them a lot about it."
The series begins with games next Monday and Wednesday in Ufa, 1,200 kilometres east of Moscow, before completing the Russian leg of the series Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 in Omsk, which is another 1,500 kilometres to the southeast.
Canada hosts the back half of the circuit Sept. 4 in Winnipeg, Sept. 5 in Saskatoon, Sept. 7 in Red Deer, Alta., and Sept. 9 in Vancouver.
Teams get two points for a win and one for a tie. If the series is tied after eight games, overtime and a shootout, if necessary, will decide it.
TSN and Sportsnet are combining to televise the eight games live with RDS providing French coverage of all eight.
The Canadian players arrived in Toronto on Monday and will have their first practice together Tuesday in Mississauga.
The team gets into Moscow on Wednesday for a three-day training camp before the series opens.
The first choice of Vladislav Tretiak, the current head of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and the Soviet goaltender in the Summit Series, would have been to stage a repeat of the 1972 event involving each countries' best players.
But the logistics of getting approval from the NHL and the Players' Association to free up the big names so close to training camps was too difficult. A series between under-20 all-star teams from each country was more doable.
"To me, it isn't an exhibition series," Sutter said. "You are still playing for something.
"You're playing for your country, you're playing for the front of that jersey. You're playing against a very heated rival. You're playing an eight-game series to go back 35 years. There's a lot of things you're playing for.
"You name 26 of your top players in the country to play in it and they're naming theirs."
There are enough subplots in the Super Series to make it interesting without linking it to 1972.
Canada's under-20 men's hockey team will go for a fourth straight gold medal at the 2008 world junior hockey championship in the Czech Republic, in an attempt to extend what is already the longest run of gold since five straight in the 1990s.
Canada has beaten Russia in the final of the last three world junior championships.
The Canadians chosen for this Super Series, born in 1988 or later, are a preview of the next world junior team.
Barring injuries or poor performances with their club teams between now and December's selection camp, the majority of these players will try to complete that fourth straight gold.
The headliner of the Canadian roster is Oshawa Generals forward John Tavares, the Canadian Hockey League's MVP at 16 and a 72-goal scorer for the Generals last season.
He was born five days too late to be eligible for the 2008 NHL entry draft, but his agent has approached both the league and the Players' Association about creating an "exceptional player" clause in the collective bargaining agreement that would allow Tavares to be drafted next year.
The NHL isn't considering changing its eligibility rules at this point, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly says. The PA currently doesn't have a leader to take up Tavares's cause.
The Canadian team also includes four players who helped Canada win gold at this year's world junior championship in Sweden — goaltender Leland Irving, defenceman Karl Alzner, and forwards Sam Gagner and Marchand.
Sutter, the architect of the world junior championship teams of 2005 and 2006, will coach a Canadian junior squad one last time before heading to the New Jersey Devils to make his debut as an NHL head coach.
His son Brandon is on the Canadian team.
Russia has sent 'B' teams to Canada for an annual six-game series against CHL all-stars, who have won 21 out of a total 24 games.
But the Super Series is Tretiak's pet project and he has committed to putting the cream of his country's crop up against Canada's.
"We are going to test the best players," he said when the event was announced in May.
Goaltender Semen Varlamov, defencemen Igor Zubov, Yuri Alexandrov and Vyacheslav Voinov and forwards Alexei Cherepanov, Artem Anisinov and Anton Glovatskiy were members of the team that lost to Canada in the world junior final in January and are on the Russian roster again.
Cherepanov was the top Russian taken in this year's NHL draft, going 17th overall to the New York Rangers. Winger Nikita Filatov, considered his country's top prospect for next year's NHL draft, is also on the team.
Russia will be coached by former NHL forward Sergei Nemchinov.
He and Sutter played on opposite sides in the 1987 Canada Cup final, in which Wayne Gretzky's pass to Mario Lemieux for the winning goal ranks alongside Henderson's game-winner in memorable hockey moments.
Another element in this Super Series series is that Russia refuses to be part of the transfer agreement in which the NHL financially compensates European federations for players who go the league.
NHL clubs are more reluctant to draft Russians because of the headache of getting them over here. It may be some time before North Americans get another close-up view of Cherepanov and company after this series.
Not all of Canada's junior-aged players are made available for the world junior team by their respective NHL clubs in December. That holds true for this squad as forwards Jordan Staal of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks are not on it.
Both countries will be rusty to open the series. Players of that calibre train all summer, but they haven't played a meaningful game since April or May.
What sets Canada apart from other countries at the world junior championship is the passion and emotion the players bring to it.
It remains to be seen if they'll feel the same about this series, although Sutter will demand it from them.
At the 2006 world junior championship in Vancouver, he showed his genius for getting the most out of his players in a gold-medal effort.
Russia pays the Canadian team's expenses there and Hockey Canada foots the bill when it hosts the Russians.
Hockey Canada's budget for the event is about $1 million, according to Brad Pascall, Hockey Canada's director of national teams.
