Politics fuelled international hockey’s greatest moments – and will again for Canada vs. USA Saturday

Conjure the most iconic moments in international hockey history, and two stand above the rest eternally. Not Canada Cup 1987, not World Cup 1996, not the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

The 1972 Summit Series and 1980 Miracle On Ice transcend the tournaments in which they happened. They are hockey’s two most celebrated snapshots not just internationally but even if we include the entire history of the NHL.

It’s “Henderson has scored for Canada!” and “Do you believe in Miracles?” They aren’t the only two remember-where-you-were moments international hockey tournaments have produced, but no others are looked back upon with such emotion.

Why?

Is it because the hockey was so good? The 1972 Summit Series did feature some of the sport’s all-time greats, from Bobby Clarke to Phil and Tony Esposito to Vladislav Tretiak to Boris Mikhailov. The Soviet Union’s puck movement and team game were like nothing North American hockey audiences had ever seen, and the eight-game classic vs. Canada marked the moment the world realized other nations could compete with the Great White North. The 1980 U.S. Olympic team delivered some of the most inspired and spirited hockey of all-time under master tactician coach Herb Brooks, who crafted a peerlessly conditioned team of American kids to beat the Soviets in what is still considered the sport’s greatest all-time upset.

But for anyone old enough to witness those tournaments: do you have strong memories of the actual hockey highlights? Or of everything that was going on around the games?

The NHL Alumni Association celebrated the ’72 Summit Series team as its collective 2025 Keith Magnuson Man of the Year in Montreal Friday afternoon. Among the six team members present was the legendary Red Berenson, who recounted a story about Paul Henderson crashing hard into the boards and smashing his head during Game 5, which took place in hostile Moscow. Canada’s team doctor desperately tried to get to Henderson, but the Soviet soldiers in attendance, brandishing guns, “formed a circle,” as Berenson remembers it, blocking the doctor from getting to his player.

As recounted by Canada ’72 defenseman Rod Seiling Friday: the Soviets escorted Team Canada off its plane via armed soldiers and stole the food and refreshments Canada had procured for its off days. The Canadian players received witching-hour phone calls disrupting their sleep on game days. It was so much more than a hockey series – because of the politics.

“It was a war,” said Paul Henderson, the Summit’s legendary game-winning goal scorer, Friday afternoon. “It was our way of life against theirs. The problem was that we hated them, but we shouldn’t have, we should have hated the system, because I’ve gotten to know [the players].”

1972 and 1980 happened at the peak of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was the world’s greatest threat to democracy. The tensions may have been highest for the 1980 Winter Games, after the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan in 1979 – the United States would later lead a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games in retaliation. The political tensions in the background of the events elevated the magnitude of the hockey. Don’t believe me? New York Islanders great Ken Morrow, who played on the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, once told me he’s had military members come up to him and tell him the win over the Soviets signalled the beginning of the end of the Cold War. It puts into context the jubilation in the frenzied crowd in Lake Placid, with drunk fans throwing frisbees on the ice after Mike Eruzione scored the winner for USA. It was a victory for more than hockey.

Which brings us to what we’ve seen in Canadian NHL arenas over the past month, in the weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports by 25 percent, promoting many Canadians and retailers of all sorts to encourage boycotting American products. The Star Spangled Banner has been consistently booed in most buildings, prompting some U.S.-based crowds to counter-boo O Canada. It was a foregone conclusion that we’d see the American anthem jeered by the passionate Bell Centre fans when Team USA played its first game of the 4 Nations Face-Off Thursday. The crowd became Finland supporters for the night, the majority ignoring the pre-game PA announcement asking they refrain from anthem booing out of respect.

“I didn’t like it. And that’s all I’ve got,” American forward Matthew Tkachuk said Thursday night after the game, through gritted teeth.

Asked Friday what to expect for Canada and USA’s tilt on Saturday, Canada captain Sidney Crosby said he didn’t want to discuss the booing and that “we respect the anthems.”

Modern hockey players are, to say the least, not political animals. Conformity is their way of life. They “punish” rookies by making them skate laps alone. That’s how much they loathe standing out. With one recent exception coming from the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which successfully pushed the NHL to postpone games in 2020 after the Kenosha, Wisc., police shooting of Jacob Blake, they prefer not to express strong opinions for the most part. It’s thus a relatively pointless exercise to solicit their thoughts on the anthem booing of the Canada-U.S. trade tensions. You mostly get mumbled answers about “the troops who fought and died for our freedom.”

Most of the players would rather not believe the outside noise ties into any element of the game. But the tension on either side of the border is real, the fans will continue to make their political statement by booing the anthem…and USA vs. Canada on Saturday night is going to be the most politically charged hockey game in years. There won’t be any hiding from that, especially when the booing starts.

“To represent our nation is something we think is bigger than ourselves or the sport for that matter,” said 4 Nations U.S. coach Mike Sullivan. “So from that regard, I think we have guys that are proud Americans. As far as the national anthem, I’m not sure there’s influence there. That’s really not something that we can control. We just want to play hockey. We want to compete. We want to represent our nation in the right way.”

It’s also possible that, while the players will focus on the hockey in the present, they’ll better understand the political ramifications years later. That was the case for Eruzione in 1980, believe it or not.

“Whenever I talk to people, I think they’re disappointed when I say, ‘Look, it was a hockey game for us,’ ” Eruzione told Daily Faceoff last week. “Now, for people around the country it was different. For a lot of Americans it meant far more than that. And years later, we appreciate now that it was a moment that touched the lives of our country and brought great joy to our country. We never looked at the political climate. It was never talked about in the locker room. But after the Olympic Games, we realized how big it was, and it made us even more proud.”

Yet others felt the politics immediately in the moment – more so the 1972 team members.

“You’re in the middle of the Cold War,” Seiling said. “So it was portrayed right away, our lifestyle, democracy, vs. Communism. We knew that if we lost, the Soviets would be trumpeting, ‘See, our way of life is better.’ So it permeated everything. What goes around comes around, and if you don’t learn from history, history is going to repeat itself.”

The ever eloquent goaltender Ken Dryden had the unique position of playing in the ’72 Series and also being on hand as a color commentator alongside Al Michaels at the ’80 Lake Placid Games. Dryden sees players’ role as something between the two sentiments.

“To me it wasn’t the feeling of politics, particularly in 1972, but it was certainly the feeling of nationalism,” Dryden said. “And I think there’s a difference between the two. And it was deeply national, deeply patriotic in 1972. And in the end, it’s the moment that determines how patriotic you’re going to feel.”

Maybe that’s the best way to understand how to place the Canadian and American players on the scale Saturday night at Bell Centre. The moment will determine how patriotic they’re going to feel – and the moment is not going to disappoint. They players may not care much for the politics, but the fans in attendance will, and that’s going to ratchet up the adrenaline.

Depending on how things play out in the Canada-U.S. Trade War in the weeks, months and years to come, it could affect how we all look back on the 4 Nations Face-Off.

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Politics fuelled international hockey’s greatest moments – and will again for Canada vs. USA Saturday

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