SO MUCH HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT THE 1972 CANADA–Russia series, but some comments just stand out. In closing, here are a select few that really encapsulate what happened at that great event.
“This was the greatest series played in any sport. This was war!”
— Don Cherry
“What Team Canada ’72 accomplished was incredible. There has never been a greater victory in any sport.”
— Bobby Orr
“This was a cold war. Our way of living against their way of living.”
— Rod Seiling
“It wasn’t a game anymore. It was society against society.”
— Phil Esposito
“This is really life and death here. Down on that ice it is just sheer war.”
— Foster Hewitt
“If we didn’t win, it would be a mark for the rest of our lives.”
— Frank Mahovlich
“It scared the hell out of me that I would have killed them to win. That scared me.”
— Phil Esposito
“The greatest emotional moment a player can have is when he is standing on the ice surface in a foreign country and they are playing your national anthem.”
— Bobby Clarke
“Nothing in hockey ever brought me so low or took me so high. And nothing meant so much.”
— Ken Dryden
“I believe the biggest highlight of my hockey career was in 1972 when we were able to win that series that became so important to hockey.”
— Peter Mahovlich
“There’ll never be another one like it and I was proud to be a part of it.”
— Tony Esposito
“I’ve never been prouder of a bunch of guys in my life. That team had a lot of heart.”
— Gary Bergman
“Regardless of all the tension, these games contributed to establishing more human, more normal relations between people. The ‘72 series was absolutely one of the most brilliant events in world hockey in the twentieth century.”
—Vladimir Putin, president of Russia