It probably helped that this time our guys came in game shape and had actually been practicing together.
They got caught flatfooted and unprepared in 72 and that wasn't ever going to happen again.
50 Years Ago
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They got caught flatfooted and unprepared in 72 and that wasn't ever going to happen again.
I did some research on Canada's greatest team and found a thread on reddit. It is a bit of a read, but the writer is spot on with his analysis.
Over the years, Canada has had its share of great teams in international hockey. As a result, I'm wondering what you all think is the greatest Team Canada of all time.
Here are the contenders off the top of my head:
- 1976 Canada Cup. Out of 25 guys on the roster, 18 of them (72%) are in the Hall of Fame. The core of the team were players from the high-flying Montreal Canadiens and rough-and-tumble Philadelphia Flyers, together with greats from teams like the Sabres, Kings, and Leafs (Darryl Sittler scored the OT winner in the final game). Bobby Orr played in his only international tourney, and a battered knee didn't stop him from winning MVP honours. Bobby Hull said that "he was better on one leg than the rest of us were on two."
- 1987 Canada Cup. Widely hailed as one of the greatest international tournaments in history, full of passion, excitement, and drama. Canadian fans were salivating at the thought of Wayne Gretzky (in his absolute prime as a player) and an up-and-coming Mario Lemieux playing together, and boy did they deliver. Mario, of course, scored the winner against the Soviets in the final game, taking a pass from Gretzky on a 2-on-1. 12 out of 23 members of this team (52%) are Hall of Famers.
- 2002 Olympics. The team that won Canada's first Olympic gold medal in hockey in 50 years, featuring Gretzky as GM and Pat Quinn as coach. 14 of 23 players (61%) are Hall of Famers, including Lemieux, who captained the squad. Tournament MVP Joe Sakic scored the clinching goal in the gold-medal game vs. the USA on a breakaway. On a personal note, this win was especially memorable for me, as it was sweet, sweet revenge for Canada's loss to the Americans in the '96 World Cup and a ray of happiness after losing my father a month earlier. The losses in '96 to the States and to the Czechs at the '98 Olympics had many Canadians questioning whether our national teams were up to the mark. The win in 2002 put all that to bed, however.
- 2005 World Juniors. I've been watching the World Juniors since 1995, and I've seen Canada win a lot of these tournaments. However, I've seen NO team that has utterly dominated a WJHC like the '05 Team Canada that stormed to the gold in Grand Forks, North Dakota. As the NHL was mired in a lockout at the time, Canada was the beneficiary of having many players available that otherwise would've played in the NHL. They won all six of their games, outscoring their opponents 41-7 and blasting the Alexander Ovechkin-led Russians 6-1 in the gold medal contest. The first line consisted of Ryan Getzlaf, Jeff Carter, and Andrew Ladd, who were a combined +35 and never had a opposing goal scored when they were on the ice. What was the second line, you ask? Oh, only Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, and Corey Perry. This was another sweet win in my books, as the Canadians had lost the previous year's WJHC in Finland to the Americans on an own goal by Braydon Coburn. To come back the way they did after that demoralizing defeat, and win it all on American soil, was nothing short of marvellous. That this group formed the backbone of future victorious Canadian Olympic teams makes this championship all the more significant.
- 2014 Olympics. Probably the greatest Olympic team I've ever witnessed. This Mike Babcock-coached group perfected the art of puck possession en route to an undefeated tournament and a gold medal in Russia. Surprisingly, only Latvia, who had an impressive goalie in Kristers Gudlevskis, gave them a scare, but Canada pulled it out in a squeaker, 2-1. In their two highest-pressure games of the tournament, the semi-finals against the USA and the gold medal game against Sweden, they didn't allow a single goal. Carey Price hardly touched the puck in the gold medal contest! This tournament proved that Canadians could win on the big ice surfaces in Europe, which is something some people said they couldn't do in the past. I'm sure a bunch of the guys on this team (Crosby, Toews, Bergeron, Perry, Getzlaf) are headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame as well.
For my money, I'm going to go with the '76 Canada Cup team as the greatest Team Canada ever. You can't beat almost three-quarters of your roster being Hall of Famers. Also, a lot of the guys on this team were from the Montreal Canadiens, who were about to embark on the greatest season an NHL team has ever had (60-8-12, 132 points and the Stanley Cup), and the group was coached by Scotty Bowman, the Canadiens' coach and the winningest bench boss of all time. I didn't see the '76 and '87 teams (wasn't born yet and was too young, respectively), but I wish I had. For the teams I've seen, the '05 and '14 teams take the cake.
Every intelligent, rational and knowledgeable hockey fan agree the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens were the greatest team ever.
(250) Were the 1976-77 Habs | Toronto Escorts Review Board Forum | Terb
Eagleson should remain totally forgotten and eternally damned to the lowest bowels of Hell. He was still a wanted man in the U.S after he was convicted and served his prison sentence at one of Canada's many minimum security spas. in fact, he used to brag about the front gate being open during the day. Gourmet meals, generous day parole and golf were de rigeur benefits of his sentence. After all, for all of his crimes in Canada, he served a extraordinarily lengthy term of just six months of an eighteen month sentence at Mimico Correctional.
His crimes included cleaning out all for many players who trusted him with their money and pension funds. A few players, namely Bobby Orr, complained that they were penniless when they retired after earning hundreds of dollars in salaries over the years. Eagleson skimmed their wages and pensions. He established a union for the players during the seventies and cleaned them out, too. One of his most egregious capers was the ripping off of the Canada Cup Series. He siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars from the 1984,1987 and 1991 tournaments as well as the original 1976 matches.
After all his crimes, it took a few players to speak up to bring them to light. He was a thieving crook for three decades before he was caught.
I'm glad that he was disbarred, kicked out of the Hockey Hall of Fame and expunged from the Order of Canada. Today, at 89, he is still unrepentant.
Damn that bastard.
If the players knew in game 8 what a weasel he would become in the future, they would not have rescued him from the Moscow Police
Most if not all of what you described above occurred post 1972. My comment was about his role pre and during the 1972 series itself. But nice flex though...
He's not forgotten. He's intentionally ignored, and deservedly so.
Amongst many other things, he made his name by representing Bobby Orr as his agent and subsequently swindled #4. Whatever good he did was simply a residual side effect of cashing in for himself at every turn and that includes '72.
It sounds like he's a hero to you. Your kind of guy.
What do you mean "in the future?" Eagleson was robbing the NHLPA as soon as he founded it. He was the operator of the Union. He was already sticking it to his player-clients with high fees (10% or greater). He was a thief from the very beginning.
I'm sure that my abilities of comprehension exceed yours.
You need to lose your attitude. You are consistently condescending whenever someone dares to have a different opinion.
Eagleson is intentionally getting shunned. He is despised. End of story.
You said "he's getting intentionally shunned".
I said "conveniently forgotten".
Clearly you didn't understand my post. If you did, you wouldn't have repeated exactly what I said using different words in a useless attempt to 'shack-splain' something that had already gone over your head. Way to go, nitpicker extraordinaire!
And you wonder why I use a condescending tone with you? Ho-ly!? Thick, much?
JW, you've been lucky so far. Any moment now he is liable to go and post a pic of that dude pointing a finger at his head with the caption: "I'm living rent free in your head". You know the one, we've all seen it a hundred times.
You are so predictable. You only get brave when you have someone's skirt to come out from behind as you've done thousands of times before. You never fight your own battles.
I apologize if he doesn't look enough like you because we know you have a problem with people like that.
Don't you just know it. Now he's gone and posted a pic of a kid sticking a finger up his nose.
As he's hiding behind his mother's skirt.
Try fighting your own fights when challenged, once in a while, instead of always turtling.
Any images I post are a response to your repeatedly predictable behaviour. If you fought your own fights there'd be no images of Turtle Boy or cowardly children behind their mothers' skirts. That's why you see them so often. You keep doing the same thing and keep getting the same response.
