Bobby Clarke and Paul Henderson's different views on the Kharlamov slash

[Big Phil]

So we all know about the slash in 1972. But how many people remember in 2002 when there was a 30th anniversary reunion planned and Henderson was asked about the slash and said something that I think was sort of the first time he had ever said it, and that he felt the slash was basically a dark moment. He felt there could have been more sportsmanship during this series. Well, if you remember, that set off Clarke. He shot back at Henderson basically calling him out for talking about a teammate that way. Henderson I can remember, who always handles things with class, mentioned he had spoken with Clarke and that the media can often turn things into a bigger issue than they were. It made you think things were okay between him and Clarke.

Well, in the "Summit 72" documentary that came out for the 50th anniversary the same sort of thing was brought up. Clarke talked about the slash, wasn't apologetic about it, owned it, and still had a problem with Henderson calling him out on it 20 years earlier. Clarke says in the interview that Henderson approached him basically saying that they both have grandsons the same age (I am paraphrasing) and it would be difficult to explain that slash. Clarke responded by saying he wouldn't want his grandson to turn his back on a teammate like Henderson did.

Henderson isn't the only one on the team with an issue about the slash. Dennis Hull was interviewed in this documentary and said that he wouldn't have wanted to win that way. So it isn't just Henderson.

I mean the way I look at it, it has been 50 years, things happen. You can look back on things and say that everyone's emotions got the best of them. Hey, it happened both ways, lots of things to look back on. I have to wonder, how long will Clarke hold this sort of grudge against Henderson for this?

 

[JackSlater]

They are coming from very different places with regard the the slash, to say nothing of their personalities. Henderson has been known as basically a hero for fifty years due to his goals. Clarke's contributions have been boiled down for most people to just the slash, even though he was one of the best players in the series and even a huge part of Henderson's success. It's easy for Henderson to disavow the slash when he had nothing to do with it and he gets only positive attention from the series, even though his legacy benefits from the slash indirectly. Not so for Clarke.

 

[NickyFotiu]

Bobby Clarke was such a dirty player with his stick who hid behind his teammates who fought for him. I do not have any respect for Clarke. I don't mind fighting but I hate cheap shot artists.

 

[Staniowski]

Clarke will probably always hold it against Henderson.

I dont know why it bothers Clarke 50 years later, though....he did it, he should take responsibility for it, but who cares, really.

 

[MS]

Bobby Clarke was a dirty POS - on the ice and off it the way he screwed his peers for Eagleson - and I'm fully with Henderson on this.

We might have been the 'good guys' politically at the time in terms of the wider meaning of that series but the USSR were the good guys on the ice.

 

[Staniowski]

Bobby Clarke was a dirty POS - on the ice and off it the way he screwed his peers for Eagleson - and I'm fully with Henderson on this.

We might have been the 'good guys' politically at the time in terms of the wider meaning of that series but the USSR were the good guys on the ice.

Yeah, Clarke has all these negatives as part of his legacy - The Slash, his support of Eagleson, all the crap with Lindros, the weird Roger Neilson quote, the unbelievably dirty play in the 1970s....etc.

 

[Staniowski]

Re: Clarke's dirty play....

It is actually difficult to overstate how dirty Clarke was....surely the dirtiest star play I've ever seen.

I've seen games in the mid-'70s where Clarke commits more dirty acts in a few shifts than Messier would've in an entire season. Unbelievably dirty.

He was also an excellent and very effective player.

 

[MS]

Yeah, Clarke has all these negatives as part of his legacy - The Slash, his support of Eagleson, all the crap with Lindros, the weird Roger Neilson quote, the unbelievably dirty play in the 1970s....etc.

Clarke is just ... not a very good person. Some of his negatives as a human being made him excel as a hockey player, but I'm not exactly proud of how he represented my country internationally.

 

[The Panther]

I don't know that much about Clarke as a person. Didn't see him play, either.

Last August, I read Vladislav Tretiak's autobiography, and he had a hilarious sentence (in English translation), which basically said: "To see Bobby Clarke off the ice, he appeared like a mass murderer." But then Tretiak said he got to know Clarke through the 70s and 80s, and he was one of the nicest people Tretiak knew. Tretiak said as soon as he talked to Clarke off the ice (this was in, like, 1974 or something), he was super friendly and caring, asking after Tretiak's wife and kids and always knowing their names, etc.

So, I suppose it's one of those things where a lot of players who came out of the 50s-70s or whatever have two sides: The competitive side (= asshole) that comes out in the heat of battle or in hockey matters ("We didn't tell him to get cancer", etc.), and the personal side which emerges once the competition is put aside.

 

[JianYang]

Clarke is just ... not a very good person. Some of his negatives as a human being made him excel as a hockey player, but I'm not exactly proud of how he represented my country internationally.

I still remember Clarke coming out on national TV talking about Roger Neilson and saying something like it's not their fault he got cancer.

Even as a young teen at the time, I knew that comment was just awful.

As for the slash, I don't think I can provide a whole lot of substance because I truly believe that if I didn't live the series, then I don't fully understand it no matter how much research I do.

However, for what it's worth, I never liked it when I found out about it, and I feel like it's a stain. But, guys like espo will remind you that the Soviets were no angels, and were even kicking the Canadians. However, thats just not an excuse afiac.

 

[Dingo]

I just see an attack like that as so, so cowardly.
And im not one of those people who throws that word around like its nothing and applies it to street attacks or bullies, because typically they have courage involved but are just assholes.

To truly love a sport is to want to win at it, but also to respect it enough to play it by the rules (although i can see anger leading to many rule bends and breaks)

To premeditatedly remove a star player away from the puck, blindsided with only the intention of getting him to not be able to play says to me that you were shaking in your skates about your ability to win properly. It tells me that you have already accepted that you cant win properly and are such a wimp that you cant live with that.

A true, 100% pure competitor, CRAVES to have his opponent at 100%. Demands it, and withstanding the confines of organization with TV and Leagues, would ask that a game be rescheduled until his opponent is fully operational. f*** the hoopla, meet me on a pond or a rink in secret if we have to - and make sure everyone is there and healthy - Orr, Firsov, Hull, etc. included.

But that is very hard to organize and hope for, and those players were not rich back then.

What they did was great. To organize two teams like that and take the chance of being the loser on a stage never before erected, Espo’s speech, Henderson’s goals, Kharlamov taping his ankle up to try to play - what winners are all about. What Clarke did is what losers are all about.

So I can see why he is still mad about it. He can never let it go because it exposed a complete and utter lack of character to the world, and he doesnt have the ability to own it and grow as a man. It will eat him up subconsciously forever, and he will continue to react in denial and anger and placement of the blame on Henderson, Kharlamov, the mean Russians… anything that might stick.

 

[double5son10]

Re: Clarke's dirty play....

It is actually difficult to overstate how dirty Clarke was....surely the dirtiest star play I've ever seen.

I've seen games in the mid-'70s where Clarke commits more dirty acts in a few shifts than Messier would've in an entire season. Unbelievably dirty.

He was also an excellent and very effective player.

 

[GMR]

What he did to Pospisil was even worse. He was just a dirty POS. This whole "us against the world" crap doesn't fly in a game against Czechoslovakia.

 

[Overrated]

Team Canada got lucky but was the better team in the end. The Soviets could have won had they played Firsov instead one of their bottom rated forwards. Clarke is of course super overrated and there were at least 5 forwards in the USSR better than him. Canada's strength throughout the 70s was their defense.

 

[Big Phil]

A couple of things I will bring up. Roger Neilson was friends with Clarke until he passed away. Surprisingly, he never held it against Clarke that he got fired. Stayed friends with him. Neilson was a class act, I think most people believe that anyway, so it isn't surprising. So who knows, maybe there is more to Clarke than meets the eye off the ice. I don't know.

As for the slash, I have never thought Clarke has to really focus on it too much. It happened, I think you just sort of own it and that's it. But it does sometimes take away from how well Clarke played that series, not to mention how his line was the only one that played all 8 games. They never wavered. Not forgotten is the fact that only 3 players in NHL history have won more Harts than Clarke (3) and that's Gretzky, Howe and Shore. Obviously a few have won 3 as well as him.

I will say full disclosure that I was always on Team Neilson back in the day with how he was treated. I am not overly sure about the Lindros thing. It wasn't as if Lindros wasn't difficult in his past. But I think we have to sort of let the slash be what it is. I think we as Canadians generally think of Boris Mikhailov as a great player - and maybe an omission from the HHOF - rather than the guy who kicked Bergman. Should be the same with Clarke. Although Clarke does have an unnecessary bitterness with his old linemate Henderson over his thoughts on it.

 

[Hanji]

A couple of things I will bring up. Roger Neilson was friends with Clarke until he passed away. Surprisingly, he never held it against Clarke that he got fired. Stayed friends with him. Neilson was a class act, I think most people believe that anyway, so it isn't surprising. So who knows, maybe there is more to Clarke than meets the eye off the ice. I don't know.

As for the slash, I have never thought Clarke has to really focus on it too much. It happened, I think you just sort of own it and that's it. But it does sometimes take away from how well Clarke played that series, not to mention how his line was the only one that played all 8 games. They never wavered. Not forgotten is the fact that only 3 players in NHL history have won more Harts than Clarke (3) and that's Gretzky, Howe and Shore. Obviously a few have won 3 as well as him.

I will say full disclosure that I was always on Team Neilson back in the day with how he was treated. I am not overly sure about the Lindros thing. It wasn't as if Lindros wasn't difficult in his past. But I think we have to sort of let the slash be what it is. I think we as Canadians generally think of Boris Mikhailov as a great player - and maybe an omission from the HHOF - rather than the guy who kicked Bergman. Should be the same with Clarke. Although Clarke does have an unnecessary bitterness with his old linemate Henderson over his thoughts on it.

Mikhailov's kick isn't comparable. Mikhailov kicked Bergman in a scrum, in the heat of the moment, face-to-face. Bergman even kicked Mikhailov back.

Was it dirty? Totally. But it's not in the same universe as a premeditated attack from behind on a thoroughly defenseless player, with the sole intention of removing him from the series. Such an extreme action reveals that Clarke (and the coach who ordered it) had come to the conclusion they couldn't win. Kharlamov had to go.

As stated above by the poster Dingo, "(Clarke) can never let it go because it exposed a complete and utter lack of character to the world, and he doesnt have the ability to own it and grow as a man."
Great player. Petty individual.

 

[Overrated]

Mikhailov's kick isn't comparable. Mikhailov kicked Bergman in a scrum, in the heat of the moment, face-to-face. Bergman even kicked Mikhailov back.

Was it dirty? Totally. But it's not in the same universe as a premeditated attack from behind on a thoroughly defenseless player, with the sole intention of removing him from the series. Such an extreme action reveals that Clarke (and the coach who ordered it) had come to the conclusion they couldn't win. Kharlamov had to go.

As stated above by the poster Dingo, "(Clarke) can never let it go because it exposed a complete and utter lack of character to the world, and he doesnt have the ability to own it and grow as a man."
Great player. Petty individual.

The kick lacked power as well, it's a reach to say it was comparable to anything serious. I guess in Canadian hockey back then kicking was a no-no as it was not honorable compared to punching. In European hockey there likely was no difference as both were unacceptable.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

The kick lacked power as well, it's a reach to say it was comparable to anything serious. I guess in Canadian hockey back then kicking was a no-no as it was not honorable compared to punching. In European hockey there likely was no difference as both were unacceptable.

Kicking with skates on isn't a 'some think it's weird, some are cool with it' kind of thing. You can end a career or even kill a guy that way.

 

[The Panther]

Hockey players can be all three of these at the same time:
-- Super great player on the ice
-- Super nice guy off the ice
-- Complete psycho on the ice

Hey, Clarke got all three! Impressive.

 

[The Panther]

Clarke is of course super overrated

I never saw Clarke play and I'm not his fan, but I cannot agree that he is "super overrated".

Clarke played in a League where voters actually saw all the (good) teams play regularly (unlike now), and he won two Hart trophies over peak Bobby Orr and Guy Lafleur. You might say this is "overrating" him, but I don't think so.

Those two seasons Clarke scored at a pace of 121 points per 80 games (and was consistent both seasons). Orr and Esposito (in '75) were still on a different level offensively (though Clarke matched 91% of Espo's point production that year!), but he was matching players like Lafleur and Dionne in offensive production.

That's amazing in itself, but then consider this: In 1974-75, Clarke -- who, I would assume, got the most ice-time of Flyer forwards -- was on the ice for 19 non-PP goals against all season. I repeat, not counting PP goals against, he was on for 19 goals against ALL SEASON. In 1975-76, this number jumped up to whopping 23 goals against.

Like, how is that even possible? Clarke was 1st in assists / 6th in scoring in 1975, and he was 1st in assists / 2nd in scoring in 1976... and the opposition managed to score one goal every four games he was on the ice.

Let's put this stat to comparison with other stars of the same period (the stat is non-PP goals against, regardless of team strength / ice-time, etc.):
19 - Clarke 1975
23 - Clarke 1976
31 - Barber 1976
48 - Lafleur 1976
55 - Lafleur 1975
60 - P. Mahovlich 1975
68 - Perreault 1976
77 - Esposito 1975
77 - Dionne 1976
85 - Orr 1975
89 - Larouche 1976
100 - Esposito 1976
110 - Dionne 1975

I mean, if being an Art Ross candidate (while leading in assists), winning Cups as captain, and simultaneously being maybe the most effective defensive forward in NHL history is "overrated", then okay...

It's okay to admit a guy you dislike personally was a good player.

 

[Hobnobs]

A couple of things I will bring up. Roger Neilson was friends with Clarke until he passed away. Surprisingly, he never held it against Clarke that he got fired. Stayed friends with him. Neilson was a class act, I think most people believe that anyway, so it isn't surprising. So who knows, maybe there is more to Clarke than meets the eye off the ice. I don't know.

As for the slash, I have never thought Clarke has to really focus on it too much. It happened, I think you just sort of own it and that's it. But it does sometimes take away from how well Clarke played that series, not to mention how his line was the only one that played all 8 games. They never wavered. Not forgotten is the fact that only 3 players in NHL history have won more Harts than Clarke (3) and that's Gretzky, Howe and Shore. Obviously a few have won 3 as well as him.

I will say full disclosure that I was always on Team Neilson back in the day with how he was treated. I am not overly sure about the Lindros thing. It wasn't as if Lindros wasn't difficult in his past. But I think we have to sort of let the slash be what it is. I think we as Canadians generally think of Boris Mikhailov as a great player - and maybe an omission from the HHOF - rather than the guy who kicked Bergman. Should be the same with Clarke. Although Clarke does have an unnecessary bitterness with his old linemate Henderson over his thoughts on it.

I though tthe same thing about Lindros vs Clarke until the punctured lung-story came out and I thought "Ah so it was Clarke being the effing cancer that he is again"...

Kicking with skates on isn't a 'some think it's weird, some are cool with it' kind of thing. You can end a career or even kill a guy that way.

No one was saying that. They pointed to the difference between a heat of the moment action which is still dirty and a premeditated action to injure which is even more dirty.

 

[Moose Head]

Shameful moment in that series and further shameful on Clarke’s part to call out Henderson on it. Once a jackass always a jackass

 

[Overrated]

I never saw Clarke play and I'm not his fan, but I cannot agree that he is "super overrated".

Clarke played in a League where voters actually saw all the (good) teams play regularly (unlike now), and he won two Hart trophies over peak Bobby Orr and Guy Lafleur. You might say this is "overrating" him, but I don't think so.

Those two seasons Clarke scored at a pace of 121 points per 80 games (and was consistent both seasons). Orr and Esposito (in '75) were still on a different level offensively (though Clarke matched 91% of Espo's point production that year!), but he was matching players like Lafleur and Dionne in offensive production.

That's amazing in itself, but then consider this: In 1974-75, Clarke -- who, I would assume, got the most ice-time of Flyer forwards -- was on the ice for 19 non-PP goals against all season. I repeat, not counting PP goals against, he was on for 19 goals against ALL SEASON. In 1975-76, this number jumped up to whopping 23 goals against.

Like, how is that even possible? Clarke was 1st in assists / 6th in scoring in 1975, and he was 1st in assists / 2nd in scoring in 1976... and the opposition managed to score one goal every four games he was on the ice.

Let's put this stat to comparison with other stars of the same period (the stat is non-PP goals against, regardless of team strength / ice-time, etc.):
19 - Clarke 1975
23 - Clarke 1976
31 - Barber 1976
48 - Lafleur 1976
55 - Lafleur 1975
60 - P. Mahovlich 1975
68 - Perreault 1976
77 - Esposito 1975
77 - Dionne 1976
85 - Orr 1975
89 - Larouche 1976
100 - Esposito 1976
110 - Dionne 1975

I mean, if being an Art Ross candidate (while leading in assists), winning Cups as captain, and simultaneously being maybe the most effective defensive forward in NHL history is "overrated", then okay...

It's okay to admit a guy you dislike personally was a good player.

A Hart trophy is a most valuable player trophy, not the best player in the league trophy. That makes it prone to emotions, especially when he personified the dirty gritty style of the 70s. He was never on the level of Orr who outscored him despite being a defenseman. Using his +/- in an argument is silly and always repeated ad nauseam but since the whole playstyle of Flyers was about committing a thousand fouls no wonder most of the goals they conceded were while shorthanded. That doesn't make them better than if they conceded them at even strength. His point production dropped severely during the play-offs and his international performance was outright pathetic scoring 4 goals in 28 matches.

People also tend to focus on forwards because they are the ones who score. That is why you will rarely see Czechs put Hasek above Jagr but not Canadians who have seen at least some forwards better than Jagr but no goaltender better than Hasek. Likewise the Soviets could hang with the Canadians despite their very weak defense. Why? Their top forwards were just that much better. The 70s Canadian forwards were never that great (with the exception of Esposito). Washed up Hull/Howe could easily hang with them and when Gretzky showed up he would outright score a 100 points more than them. I don't even think Lafleur was ever the best Canadian player. Potvin was.

 

[MadLuke]

. Using his +/- in an argument is silly and always repeated ad nauseam but since the whole playstyle of Flyers was about committing a thousand fouls no wonder most of the goals they conceded were while shorthanded. That doesn't make them better than if they conceded them at even strength

I think there is a possible point to be made here, but peak Clarke Flyers achieved to allow less goals than those historically arguably best ever at it:

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

There seem to be more into this than simply a displacement of goals against into more SH goals, they were a stellar defensive team overall.

 

[VMBM]

His point production dropped severely during the play-offs and
his international performance was outright pathetic scoring 4 goals in 28 matches.

Wayne Gretzky scored only 3 goals in the '87 Canada Cup; he must have been crap in that tournament, right?

I mean, it's a bit lame to ignore Clarke's assist numbers to prove a point (yes I know your table has those). (Like it is equally lame e.g. in Kharlamov's case in 1972; him being "shut down" after game 1 in the series is not true either statistically or otherwise.)

Clarke was not a great or even good goal-scorer; he was a playmaker and an excellent defensive forward... (And a total douchebag, but that's another story).

Having said this, Clarke's international resume is still rather weak, but having seen nearly all of the games from the '72 Series, '76 Canada Cup and '79 Challenge Cup (and some from '82 WHC), I think his only truly poor performance was the '82 World Championship, where he was about as bad as the stats suggest. But he was also clearly past his prime by then.