History of National Team Best-On-Best tournaments

[Megahab]

Were there any best-on-best national tournaments before the 1976 Canada Cup?

I'm wondering how strong the Swedish, Finnish, American, and Czechoslovakian (and maybe others) were before the 1980s. Before that, I'm not too familiar with how successful these nations were in hockey.

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[Kyle McMahon]

Best on best requires a fair bit of extrapolation for the 1970's, since Canada Cup '76 was the only best-on-best tournament that I'm aware of. I'll give it a shot.

Czechoslovakia is usually seen as a strong third to Canada and the USSR. They were able to beat the Soviets with some regularity during the 70's. Sweden was starting to produce NHL quality players as well, and was likely #4 in the pecking order as a whole. The Soviets, Czechs, and Swedes won pretty much every single medal at the World Championships in the 1970's (I don't think Canada sent a team for much of the 70's).

The US is tough to get a read on. They managed a silver medal in 1972 at the Olympics, but fared poorly outside of that. They had few NHL players at this time, and certainly none of all-star quality, so when they did participate in the World Championships (like Canada, they didn't send a team some years in the 70's), I'd imiagine it was probably NCAA players making up the roster. They were probably a sizeable step down from the four teams ahead of them. They were fifth at Canada Cup '76, but managed a draw with Czechs and certainly weren't embarrassed in their other games.

Finland was not a doormat, but wasn't really a threat until the 1980's, and may have only been slightly better than West Germany throughout the 70's. The East and West Germans were both reasonably competitve during this era, and the West won a bronze medal at the Olympics in 1976 I think. This would require some more digging, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a unified Germany might have been a consistent medal threat during this time period.

Poland also appears to have been much stronger realtive to the competition than they are today. In the 70's, they were probably the equivalent of what Switzerland is presently.

Prior to the late 60's, a best-on-best would have likely been easy victory for Canada. Teams made up of Canadian amateurs were still beating the best the Soviets and others had to offer in the earlier in the decade. The Soviets were definitely a step ahead of the rest of the world (besides Canada) throughout the 60's. The Czech's and Swedes were the next best, but didn't start to close the gap on the USSR until the 70's.

 

[YMB29]

The Soviets did not have all of their best players in 76 so I guess it is not a best on best tournament...

 

[VMBM]

Well, for what it's worth, up to 1973-74, the World Championships were sort of best-on-best minus Canada (a HUGE minus obviously) and USA (not a big hockey power pre-80s IMO). Around mid-70s, many of the best young Swedish players went to North America (B. Salming, U. Nilsson, Hedberg, Sjöberg, Roland Eriksson...), as well as some Finns (Ketola, Riihiranta, Hagman, Tamminen...), so it was only the Soviets and Czechs who had all - or nearly all in latter's case [Nedomansky & later P. Stastny defected] - the best players with them.

I would rank the European countries as follows (during the 70s):

USSR ([at least nearly] on par with Canada)
Czechoslovakia (a notch below both USSR and best of CAN but had the ability to beat both; world champions in 1972, 1976, 1977 [and 1985])
...
...
Sweden (could beat the Czechs regularly, but rarely beat the Soviets. Usually the bronze medallists below USSR and CSSR)
...
...
Finland (could beat the Swedes but rarely the Czechoslovaks and basically never the Soviets. Often struggled vs. clearly weaker teams. Big underachievers before the 1990s! Usually 4th but never got a medal prior to the 1988 Winter Olympics.
...
The rest (East and West Germany, Poland...)


So - to answer your question - I guess no, there wasn't really best-on-best tournament [in which every notable hockey power participated] before the 1976 Canada Cup and even that didn't have all the best Soviet players... but because it was rather their decision not to send their best possible team, I think the 1st Canada Cup counts anyway.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

So - to answer your question - I guess no, there wasn't really best-on-best tournament [in which every notable hockey power participated] before the 1976 Canada Cup and even that didn't have all the best Soviet players... but because it was rather their decision not to send their best possible team, I think the 1st Canada Cup counts anyway.

Does anyone know what the reason for this was?

 

[VMBM]

Does anyone know what the reason for this was?

Well, at the time of the tournament their #1 player Valeri Kharlamov was in hospital recovering from a bad car crash; I think both of his legs were broken, and he was never the same player after that, although he made quite an amazing and quick recovery.

Still, there was no good reason not to have Mikhailov, Petrov, Shadrin and Yakushev on the team. But even though they had won gold in the 1976 Winter Olympics, USSR played poorly in the World Championships a couple of months later (they even lost to Poland!). So Soviet hockey was in a little crisis even before Kharlamov's accident. Maybe they didn't believe in their chances anyway and it was a pretty convenient excuse if and when they didn't do well (which they didn't). However, I've seen two of their games (vs. Canada and Czechoslovakia) and in neither does the NA media say anything about the missing players, which I find a bit odd considering that especially Kharlamov and Yakushev were the 2 skaters they praised the most in 1972 and 1974.

One of the things was also that - as silly as it might sound especially to North American ears - the Soviets valued Olympics and World Championships [far] more than the Canada Cup - or at least so they let on.