PRESS ROOM 1974: Game 7
MONTREAL GAZETTE
by BRODIE SNYDER October 5, 1974
Moscow
At the end of two periods at the Luzhniki rink
here Saturday
night, the Soviet Union's national hockey team was
holding a
4-3 lead over Team Canada 74 and hanging on for
dear life. They
had only to tie to clinch the series 3-1-3 with
one game left
to play and even their record at 1-1 against Canadian
professionals.
As the teams returned to the ice for the final period,
the Russian
defenceman, Valery Vasilyev, was seen to skate to
the timekeepers
bench and exchange nods with that Soviet gentleman.
Vasilyev
then skated across the ice to the Soviet bench and
nodded at
his coach, Boris Kulagin.
Now perhaps the timekeeper is a neighbor or an
old college roommate
or a Second World War buddy of Kulagin's. Perhaps
Vasilyev was
merely inquiring about his health and passing the
information
on. After all, these are no more than "friendly
international
matches" or so both sides keep saying.
In any event, the Soviet gentleman with the watch
did a number
on the Canadians in the third period that has to
rank with the
annexation of Estonia., Latvia and Lithuania in
the annals of
Russian robbery and the seconds he stole eventually
cost Team
Canada a 5-4 win when a goal by Bobby Hull was ruled
to have
gone into the net after time ran out.
It was disallowed by Tom Brown, a Canadian referee
from Toronto,
who also had been involved in a controversy in the
second game
a 4-1 win for the Canadians in his home town. With
the score
3-1 and the Russians pressing he didn't allow an
obvious goal
by Vladimir Petrov that might have turned that game
around. Brown
didn't allow it he said, because he didn't see the
puck go into
the net.
The stage was set for the hectic finish when Team
Canada tied
the game at 4-4 at 6:38 of the last period on Ralph
Backstrom's
second goal of the night. From that point the Soviets
played
for the tie that would give them the series and
revenge the 1972
loss. They ragged the puck and iced it over and
over to relieve
the heavy pressure in their end of the rink.
Finally, there was a stoppage in play with 1:32
left and the
first that most people in the rink knew that something
was going
on was when an incensed Canadian goaltender Gerry
Cheevers skated
in a mad dash to the timer's bench and began to
hammer on the
glass with his stick.
"I was watching the clock" Cheevers said,
" and I saw four seconds
drop off after the whistle went and play was stopped.
I was watching
the clock because I knew when I supposed to come
out for the
extra forward. And I wouldn't be watching the clock
until the
whistle went, would I?"
Brown an Ontario Hockey Association junior referee,
also was
watching the clock. "I saw it go from 1:30
to 1:28," he said
yesterday "and I went over to the timers bench
and chased Cheevers
out of there and got the interpreter. I asked the
timer what
had happened and told him to get those two seconds
back. Not
one person came up to me and told me it was more
than two seconds.
No one said more or less. I made the decision on
what I saw."
When play resumed, the timer ran the penalty clock
for two seconds
before starting the main clock, and the two seconds
- of the
four stolen - were back in the game.
It wasn't quite enough.
With Cheevers out for the sixth attacker - in the
person of
Paul Henderson - the Canadians applied tremendous
pressure. As
the last seconds ticked off, Henderson got the puck
in the corner,
centered it to Hull, and he shot it past Soviet
goalie Vladislav
Tretiak for the apparent winner.
"It was no goal", said Brown, who waved
it off immediately. ‘I
was watching both the puck and the clock. I saw
the puck in the
corner with two seconds to go. I saw it come out
with one second
to go and the play was made after the game was over."
The why did the red light come on?
"I don't know" said Brown. "I don't
question it went on, the
puck went in. But it went on, the puck went in,
after the game
was over. The goal judge presses the red light when
the puck
goes in the net. Time is no concern of his. There
was no question
in my mind that the game was over."
Then why did the red light come on before the green
light came
on to signify the end of the game?
"I don't know," Brown said again. "I
think the referee is aware
of time. I think in a critical situation you're
aware of time.
I was right on top of the net. I was in perfect
position. I put
my hands out immediately to signify time was out."
"I don't know why the red light went on. I
guess the lights here
aren't synchronized."
The scoreboard is a $250,000 job from Finland,
built specifically
to Russian specifications and to Olympic standards
including
a tenths - of-a-second timer. It seems almost unbelievable
that
it would not have the red and green lights synchronized
as in
North America, where the red light cannot go on
if the green
light is on. But the Russians finally announced,
yesterday morning,
that the lights indeed are not synchronized.
"I find that hard to believe in that kind
of equipment" said
Hugh McLean, director of officials for the OHA and
one of the
men who trained and selected the referees for this
series.
At that point Team Canada coach Billy Harris came
by. "Why didn't
the buzzer go at the end of the game?" he asked.
"It went at
the end of the first and second periods."
"I don't know", said Brown again. "When
time is out on the clock
the game is over. I asked both linesmen (Jim Leblanc
of Canada
and Russia's Sergie Guschin) what they saw. Both
agreed time
had run out."
Game Seven also was the first time in the three
games played
here, that the tenths-of-a-second timer on the scoreboard
was
not working. Without that last digit the clock could
show 00:00
and there could still be as much as nine-tenths
of a second left
to play.
"I don't know about tenths of a second",
Brown said, and then
repeated still again, " time was out when the
puck trickled in.
There is no question in my mind that the game was
over."
Hull and the other Canadians disagreed, needless
to say.
"Henderson threw it out" Bobby said,
"and I shot it. It went
right through Tretiak. I looked up and I thought
I saw the light
flash."
Outside in the corridor where the Soviet players
had walked to
their dressing room, moments before as jubilant
with the 4-4
tie as if they'd just won the world championship,
the argument
raged.
Team Canada manager Bill Hunter demanded and received
a meeting
with officials of the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation.
"Before I
go to this meeting", he said, "I want
to make one thing perfectly
clear. The final score was 5-4 for us. I'm demanding
a hearing,
and if there is no hearing there'll be no game Sunday
night."
Hunter got his meeting, although he must of have
been out of
his mind if he really expected the Russians to give
Team Canada
the goal and a chance to tie the series. After all,
the Soviets
haven't given back East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Poland,
Bulgaria, or Romania have they?
Later, and calmed down, Hunter said: "I have
retreated from that
position. When you have time to think coolly about
it, that (not
playing) would only place us on the same level as
them."
Asked about the meeting Hunter added " Mr.
Staravoitov (Andrei
the top Soviet hockey official) is firm in his position
and we
are firm in ours. His is that the referee has the
final decision:
Ours is that we won the game 5-4: that there was
time left: the
red light went on and the referee doesn't keep time."
Hunter asked Starvoitov to see the TV replay, "which
clearly
shows we won," but the Russian declined the
offer.
Upstairs meanwhile the two coaches - Harris and
Kulagin - were
holding their usual post-game press conferences
and taking opposing
views.
Said Harris, near tears of frustration and showing
the strain:
"This was the first time they didn't count
in tenths of a second.
There were tenths of a second left. That's the only
way the red
light goes on. I know this equipment is synchronized.
The Soviets
protested a timing decision in basketball at the
Munich Olympics
against the U.S. They won it and the game and the
gold medal.
"I wish they'd do the same for us."
Said Kulagin, his face flushed : "I head the
referee's whistle
(ending the game) and all my players stopped to
show their discipline."
After that the only questions Mr. K answered were
ridiculous
ones from his stooges in the Russian press about
all-star teams
for the series, etc.
Ralph Backstrom, voted by the media men as Canada's
best player
of the game - Valery Kharlamov was the top Russian
- saw the
TV replay later and said ‘It showed the red
light was on. If
the red light was on the game wasn't over."
It was a shame it had to end like that because
it was the best
game by far of the three played here and perhaps
the best game
of the series. Brown did an exceptional job, keeping
things under
control and calling only three minor penalties -
all in the second
period and two of them to the Soviets.
As they did in Thursday nights' 5-2 loss the Canadians
fell behind
early on two goals - both medium long screened shots
- within
the first seven minutes as Viacheslav Anisin and
rookie defenceman
Yuri Turin scored.
But Tom Webster on a perfect pass out from Andre
Lacroix, jammed
it past Tretiak from the edge of the crease at 17:42
to cut the
Soviet lead to 2-1.
Canada then struck for two quick goals in the second
period.
Backstrom scored his first of the night at 2:35
on a brilliant
rush as he wheeled around Gennady Tsygankov and
went right in,
and Mark Howe made it 3-2 deflecting J.C. Tremblay's
low shot
from the point between Tretiak's legs at 6:38 with
Vladimir Lutchenko
in the penalty box.
The Russians got that power play goal back quickly.
With Whitey
Stapleton off for interference defenceman Aleksandr
Gusev scored
on a scorching blast from about 50 feet out after
Kharlamov made
the play. That came at 7:20 and just 39 seconds
later the Soviets
took the lead with captain Boris Mikhailov scoring
easily into
the open side of the net after a nifty passing play
with linemates
Kharlamov and Petrov.
But from that point the Russians were hanging on
as Team Canada
outshot them 15-8 in the second period but were
thwarted time
and time again by Tretiak who made great stops on
Hull, Backstrom,
Serge Bernier, and Webster.
The Canadians were flying again in the third period,
outshooting
the Soviets 8-4 for a 32-21 edge on the night and
after Backstrom
made it 4-4 on a weak backhander that somehow got
past Tretiak
the Russians went into a shell.
Al Hamilton the seldom used defenceman who had
an outstanding
game said of the Russians " They're a great
hockey team and they
don't have to resort to that stuff."
Except he didn't say stuff.
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