Free The Goal of My Life by Paul Henderson Page A

Hockey Federation ( IIHF ) events in 1970, and the national team program was suspended after we were refused permission to use even semiprofessional players at the world championship.
    It was against this backdrop that hockey officials in Canada and the Soviet Union decided to play a “super series” that would pit the best players Canada had to offer against the best players from Russia in an eight-game series that would take place in September 1972.
    So much has been written and said about that series over the years, and justifiably so. It was a huge deal back then, all across the country. As players in the National Hockey League, we knew what was at stake and we knew what an honour it would be to play in that series. It was the first time that the best players in the Soviet Union would play the best players from Canada in an international series, so we were all pretty pumped about it. We really wanted to finally put those Ruskies in their place!
    But honestly, I didn’t think it would be much of a series. The best players in the world were from Canada, we all believed that. I certainly did. And it’s not that I thought the Russians weren’t any good. We knew they were good. But I thought we’d win just because of all the firepower we had. I thought we would overwhelm them. There was no way any team was going to beat us. We were all pretty confident of that.
    I thought they might tie one game, or maybe win once, but I felt that if we didn’t win at least seven games it would be a travesty. And I wasn’t the only person in the country who was thinking that either.
    It was the job of head coach Harry Sinden and his assistant, John Ferguson, to pick the team, and they had a lot of options to choose from. I felt I’d at least get invited to the camp, after scoring thirty-eight goals the year before. I always took care of myself in the summer, was always in shape, and after some initial reservations cancelled our holiday cruise so I could attend Team Canada’s training camp.
    Early that summer I got a letter officially inviting me to camp, so I was ready to go. I knew it would be tough to make that team, as almost everybody who was invited wasan all-star. We had incredible firepower up front. Phil Esposito, Jean Ratelle, Stan Mikita, Red Berenson, Gilbert Perreault, Marcel Dionne, and Bobby Clarke were the centres – how is that for depth! Frank Mahovlich, Pete Mahovlich, Rod Gilbert, Yvan Cournoyer, Mickey Redmond, Vic Hadfield, and Rick Martin were all high-scoring wingers, and our defence corps included names like Brad Park, Bill White, Pat Stapleton, Guy Lapointe, Don Awrey, Rod Seiling, Gary Bergman, and Serge Savard. We also had plenty of other solid players on defence and up front who could fill a variety of roles, and Ken Dryden, Tony Esposito, and Eddie Johnston gave us very solid goaltending.
    We wouldn’t have such stars as Bobby Hull, J.C. Tremblay, Gerry Cheevers, or Derek Sanderson because they had all jumped to the World Hockey Association, and we were missing the legendary Bobby Orr, who tried to play but couldn’t due to a knee injury. But when players like Johnny Bucyk and Dave Keon couldn’t even merit an invitation to training camp, there was no reason not to think we would have a tremendous team that could beat anybody in the world.
    One of the toughest things we had to watch at the Summit Series was Bobby Orr’s attempt to play for Canada. Orr was the greatest defenceman of his era by far, a game-changer. He controlled the pace of hockey games, he could do everything, and we were all hoping against hope that he’d be able to play for us.
    He came to training camp, but it became evident pretty quickly that he was in too much pain and couldn’t function after all the crippling knee injuries and surgeries he’d had.
    There’s no doubt that Bobby was devastated. And it was tough to see him sitting in the stands, watching us, knowingthat he couldn’t get out there. And after our loss in game