Forty years later, it remains seared in the Canadian consciousness. The Summit Series of September 1972: eight games that not only changed hockey but also became a defining national event.  For Canadians, the series against the Soviet Union, which was the first time N.H.L. players skated against the Soviets, looms larger than the Miracle on Ice of the 1980 Olympics does for Americans. It is widely considered a profound unifying experience, with repercussions beyond sports. A survey by the Dominion Institute, a respected history preservation group, ranks the winning goal in the final game as the fifth-greatest event in Canadian history, just below the World War I assault on Vimy Ridge and ahead of the country’s contributions to the Allied victory in World War II.  At the height of the cold war, two hockey styles clashed: the swift, precise and contact-averse game of the Soviets against the dogged, rugged, punishing game of the Canadians. The series played out before a rapt audience on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As it moved across Canada and on to Moscow, the games became increasingly desperate, although almost everyone had assumed the Canadians would win all eight games. The pressure drove the players to new heights of skill and, for the Canadians especially, questionable behavior.  “I had never gotten a misconduct penalty — I don’t know if I was ever kicked out of a game before, ever,” J. P. Parise said last week, looking back on Game 8 in Moscow, when he raised his stick at the German referee in a blind rage and nearly brought it down on his head.  Vladislav Tretiak, the great Soviet goalie, said via e-mail last week, “I realized in full the rudeness and impudence of the Canadian players.”  Time has softened the edges of the Summit Series. After many anniversaries and reunions, the old combatants have become friends. Now the retrospectives focus on the unlikely ending manufactured by the Canadians, who recovered from a 1-3-1 deficit to win, 4-3-1, with tense one-goal victories in each of the last three games.  On Sunday, the anniversary of the series opener, in which the Soviets stunned the overconfident N.H.L. professionals by 7-3 at the Forum in Montreal, Parise and 13 other Canada veterans will fly to Russia for a series of events. Later in the month, the Soviet veterans will visit Canada.  Phil Esposito, Ken Dryden, Boris Mikhailov and Alexander Yakushev will be heard from again. And hockey fans hope that the cancer afflicting Paul Henderson, the Maple Leafs journeyman who scored the winning goals in those last three games and became a national hero, will allow him to celebrate the anniversary on Sept. 28 of his series-clinching goal with 34 seconds left.  Even today, Canadians of a certain age can remember exactly where they were when they heard Foster Hewitt’s call from Moscow: “Henderson has scored for Canada.” Dryden, Canada’s goalie and later an author and member of Parliament, wrote that it was “the one wholly Canadian event that has left a similar trail of memory” as the assassination of John F. Kennedy to Americans.  Still, in 1972 and for years after, many thought Canada’s victory was tainted by excessive violence. Consider the catalog of incidents that marked the series.  ¶ In Game 1, Bobby Clarke upended Alexander Maltsev, then chopped him over the head with his stick.  ¶ In Game 6, Clarke, at the suggestion of the assistant John Ferguson, a former Canadiens enforcer, chased down the stylish star Valery Kharlamov and broke his ankle with a brazen two-handed slash.  ¶ In Game 7, Esposito threatened Mikhailov, the Soviet captain, by drawing his finger across his throat. Later, Gary Bergman did it, too. But Mikhailov also kicked Bergman in the leg during a corner scrum, bloodying Bergman.  ¶ In Game 8, Bergman took a swing at the penalty-box timekeeper; Parise, incensed over a penalty, swooped in with stick raised and menaced the referee; Coach Harry Sinden flung chairs onto the ice; and stick-brandishing Canadian players went nose to nose with the Moscow police who tried to restrain Alan Eagleson, the team organizer, after Eagleson vaulted several rows of seats to challenge the goal judge.  The Canadians defended their actions, then and now, by comparing it to warfare. And indeed, the Summit Series was a more dramatic cold war clash than even the men’s Olympic basketball final between the United States and the Soviets that took place that month in Munich, or the Fischer-Spassky chess championship of a month before.  “To me, it was war,” Esposito said in 1989 and on several occasions since. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I think I would have killed to win.”  Clarke, in the 2011 documentary “Cold War on Ice: Summit Series ’72,” said of breaking Kharlamov’s ankle: “I don’t know what I was thinking at all — it was an awful thing to do. It sure felt good.”
Forty years ago, Canada and the Soviet Union battled in the Summit Series, which became a defining moment for both nations, on and off the ice.