Top 100 momentsNo. 26
The Summit Series
Canada’s NHL stars play the Soviets and nearly lose the plot. Paul Henderson’s winner in Game 8 is still the loudest quiet in Canadian sport.
Canada assumes NHL professionals will walk through the Soviets. Game 1 in Montreal is 7-3 the other way. The country panics. The series becomes eight games of culture shock: systems versus swagger, a hockey war with a diplomatic aftertaste.
Game 8 in Moscow. Paul Henderson scores with 34 seconds left. 6-5 Canada. Foster Hewitt’s call is still in the air. Canadians who were not alive in 1972 can still tell you where their parents were standing.
The Summit Series is Canada learning it does not own hockey, then taking it back by a goal. International hockey — the Olympics, the World Cup, every NHL kid who grew up on Soviet tape — runs through that September.