The Good Old Days...

The new version of the Canada - Russia summit series kicked off today with Canada rolling out to a 4-2 win. The fact that this is on the 35th anniversary of the greatest sporting series of all time allows us to look back and see how much the world really has changed since then. First off all, the hockey universe and the world itself has become much smaller and so many of the players in this series are familiar with one another or have played against one another in competition before, with many Russian players now playing Junior hockey in Canada. Also many of the Canadians have played together before, at least more so than was the case in 1972. The thing that made the 1972 series so great was the political implications that it carried. The mind games that were carried out, and the bitter distane and yes even hatred that existed on the ice. It was a war as had been said time and time again, and right from the get go fans knew they were in for a close series. Though when Phil Esposito scored very early in the first period of the first game it didn't look that way, but the Russians went on to win that one showing Canada they were not as invincible as they thought. This series is a classic and no matter what they try to do, they will never be able to recreate the intensity and feeling surrounding it.