This has absolutely nothing to do with the Stanley Cup finals taking place right now, but I decided to post this because, well….. I decided to, dammit.
In 1974, when the best from the renegade World Hockey Association played the Russian National team in the series that followed the original ‘72 Series, the Russian program distributed at Luzhniki Ice [...]

Years ago, before the National Hockey League became the Wall Street-watching, unionized, big ticket machine it is today, teams of the original six would often spend part of their pre-season playing various senior teams that usually belonged to the big club, in smaller towns in smaller rinks throughout the country. The Montreal Canadiens, for example, would take their [...]

In no particular order:
Jean Beliveau, Trevor Linden, Eric Duhatschek, Habs fans, Habs fans who don’t torch cars, Chris Cuthbert, readers of this blog, hard workers like Tom Kostopoulos and Maxim Lapierre,  Canada-Russia games, Henri Richard, Jim Hughson, Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, players who visit sick kids, Josh Gorges, Dick Irvin, Ken Dryden’s books, Dickie Moore, Ralph [...]

 
Those dastardy Russians. We knew they were good before they played their first game of the 1972 Summit Series. But we didn’t know they were THAT good. And they brought a ringer with them.
 His name was Valeri Kharlamov, and he was an unbelievable player. So good, in fact, that Bobby Clarke broke the guy’s ankle [...]

 
I could hardly wait for that New Year’s Eve of 1975 when the Russian Red Army team would show up at the Forum to play my team. I had been mesmorized by the events of the 1972 Summit Series, and we had seen what this far-away power could do. But this was going to be different. This time the foreigners would [...]

At least they got a point out of it.
 
Goerges Laraque said before the game that it would be a low-scoring affair, just by the nature of the Devils’ game - tight, neutral zone trapping, few goals - and Georges was absolutely right.
 
The problem was, snakebitten Alex Kovalev, instead of breaking out of his 15 game scoreless streak, took [...]

Vladislav Tretiak, the great Russian goalie who gave fits to Team Canada in 1972 and the Montreal Canadiens on New Year’s Eve, 1975, is a proud Russian, and as President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, desparately wants his country to be a real hockey country.
 In fact, he’s predicting the new Russian league, the Continental [...]

 On this day, September 28th, exactly 36 years ago, Team Canada and Team Russia played their eighth and final game of the historic 1972 Summit Series. Paul Henderson pulled it out with 34 seconds to play on kind of a broken play, and the Canadian players, coaches, and most of the entire country of Canada breathed [...]

The Canadiens played the Ottawa Senators last night and will play them again tonight and I noticed that nowhere in the Ottawa lineup did I see Frank Mahovlich.
 What’s that? Frank Mahovlich is a senator in Ottawa, not an Ottawa Senator?  Ohhhhhh.
 Never mind.
 But speaking of Frank Mahovlich…..
 In the late 1990’s, I owned a sports bar in [...]