Whose Summit Are We Talking About

The CBC has another movie on the 72 summit series of hockey in the works. Do we need another one? We already have very form of remembrance of this event. I never understand why these eight games are so very remarkable. If it is because of the idiocy of the Cold War, we should in hindsight see the foolishly overblown nature of the whole thing and downgrade it from legend to history. . If it is about hockey, then it is excellent hockey, played with passion, skill, and a healthy dose of dirtiness. But then, many a Stanley Cup series can be described as such. Indeed, in the early eighties, I have even seen many a regular season Islander/Flyer games that were a lot meaner and harder fought. If it is about little Canada beating giant U.S.S.R., it cannot be further from the truth. In hockey the super power was Canada. In this series, the super power sent it very best to play an upstart and barely came out with a victory. I would have been alarmed and slight embarrassed by the result. A super power should be able to beat an upstart with a hand tied behind its back. If the U.S. Dream Team I had to go into overtime, it would have been a complete disappointment. When the Chinese Ping-pong team won only four out of sever events in World Championship, it was a national crisis. Instead of trotting out Phil Esposito to tell us again how tough he was, I would ask why did he not simply dominate like a god that he thinks he was. And I would ask Paul Henderson why it had to come down to his famous goal for the win? Think about it, it is not a great victory. Good hockey, yes. But for the nation, it was the beginning of the end of total dominance. And that is nothing to boast about.