All-time top 10: National teams

[RorschachWJK]

Bottom line, Canada has definitely been superior to the Soviets in hockey as demonstrated by their greater number of victories in head to head play between the best each country has.

No, it's a tie. We'll have to agree to disagree on this.

 

[YMB29]

Yeah, it appears they block access into the middle of their site. Easiest way to see Phil Esposito quote: ""They had guns . . . we had hockey sticks. This was really the David and Goliath here"
Google all of: 72 summit series esposito quote Open the first entry. It links to the quotes page. You can wait a few seconds and it appears you automatically get taken the quotes page.

I mean I don't see it in the actual games. He probably said that just to make it sound interesting.

In '72, how did it take so much help to beat the Soviets at home? We won '72 without anyone's help thank you very much.

I am not talking about 72.

No, Canada can't send its best players to "many" tournaments. NHL players are under contract, and are only able to attend tournaments outside the NHL schedule. Even then, players could have it written in their contracts that they can't play hockey for any team except their NHL club team without the NHL club team's consent. In that circumstance, if the club team won't give its consent, the player can't go.

If they really wanted to, the NHL could have done it, like they do for the Olympics now.

Its part of what makes Canadians Canadians. Its why we are one the most liked countries around.

Not when it comes to hockey.

That tape had what, maybe 15 missed calls. It was a three game series, and that was all the missed calls there were? Good god, I see that many missed calls in one game sometimes.

It is only for one game. And many of those missed/bad calls resulted in goals for Canada. I can make a similar video for the other games too.

Even at that, I would agree with some of the ref's calls. Definitely looks like the Soviets were embellishing a few times...I loved that guy who did the 360.

Well if they did, they are much more convincing at doing it than the Canadians.

On the Gold Medal winning goal, looks to me like the Russian sure took a big fall for that little tug, definite embellishment there. I can imagine what the Soviet player was thinking: "Captain to bridge...Gretzky, Lemieux, and Hawerchuck approaching...DANGER DANGER...DIVE DIVE DIVE" Klaxons: "Arruuuugah....Arruuuuugah"

Why would he dive if he caught up with Lemieux?

Bottom line, Canada has definitely been superior to the Soviets in hockey as demonstrated by their greater number of victories in head to head play between the best each country has.

Check the results again.

 

[primetime]

2. Yes you won...after breaking Kharlamov's ankle with a premeditated cowardly slash. I'd say you lost morally. Also, that's just one tourney. You need to also look at the other tourneys AND all the games between teams of the Soviet League and NHL teams. This is what the author has done properly in my opinion.

To be fair, the best player in history, Bobby Orr, in his prime at the time, did not play in the tournament despite being on the Canadian team. Nor did the best scorer of the day in Bobby Hull because of the NHL/WHA politics.