🇷🇺 Soviet Union 4-4 Canada 🇨🇦
Summit Series, Game 7
Luzhniki Palace Of Sports, Moscow 🇷🇺
Saturday, 05 October 1974

As time was ticking down in Game 7, with the score knotted 4-4, Team Canada mounted a last-second push to win the game. With a tie, the Soviets would take the series. But with a win, they could still even it up with another victory in Game 8.

For the second game in a row, Brad Selwood took in the proceedings with Gilles Gratton and the other scratches from a makeshift players’ area near the team’s bench. He watched as the play swirled into the Soviets’ zone with under 10 seconds left.

Then, the puck came to Bobby Hull in the slot to Vladislav Tretyak’s right. “I remember sitting there, and we were just going crazy,” Selwood says. “Nine seconds, eight seconds, counting down, and then, all of a sudden, he scores.”

Part of the reason Team Canada had lost the previous two games was that, after scoring six of his team’s 17 goals in Canada, Hull had gone goal-less in Moscow, slowed by a wonky knee he sustained back home. But just as he’d done in Games 1 and 4, Hull came up big when he was needed most.

Paul Henderson, Ralph Backstrom and Gordie Howe, who all charged the net in case of a rebound, raised their arms. Team Canada’s bench erupted, and some 3,000 Canadian fans in the arena went wild. The red light went on, as did the green light to signal the end of the game, only after which did the siren sound.

However, that’s not how the on-ice official viewed the sequence of events. Perhaps he had visions of a one-way ticket to a gulag in Siberia. But just as he did after Vladimir Petrov’s goal in Game 2, Canadian referee Tom Brown waved off the goal and, with it, washed away Team Canada’s hopes.

“We knew it was wrong,” Selwood says. “We looked up several times, and there was X number of seconds left on the clock. Bobby scored in plenty of time. Plenty of time. We all went crazy, of course. We knew we were getting jobbed. I could use a worse word, but you’re probably going to put this in print.”

Exactly 1:32 earlier, Gerry Cheevers had watched from his goal crease as the timekeeper allowed four seconds to tick off the clock during a stoppage in play. Incensed, Cheevers raced over to the timekeeper’s box and slammed his goalie stick against the glass. Brown forced Soviet officials to put two seconds back on the clock, but no more, and he would not push his luck with Hull’s goal.

“Everybody thought it went in before time expired,” Andre Lacroix says. “But again, are you going to argue in Russia? I don’t think the referee was going to get out alive if he’d changed his mind. How are you going to get back to the airport if you make the call in our favor in those days?”

BOXSCORE
1st Period
03:34 – 🇷🇺 GOAL – Anisin (Lutchenko)
06:47 – 🇷🇺 GOAL – Tiurin (Lebedev, Yakushev)
17:42 – 🇨🇦 GOAL – Webster (Lacroix)

2nd Period
22:55 – 🇨🇦 GOAL – Backstrom (G. Howe, M. Howe)
26:11 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Lutchenko, elbowing
26:38 – 🇨🇦 PP GOAL – M. Howe (Tremblay, Backstrom)
27:06 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Stapleton, hooking
27:20 – 🇷🇺 PP GOAL – Gusev (Petrov, Kharlamov)
27:59 – 🇷🇺 GOAL – Mikhailov (Petrov, Kharlamov)
29:18 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Maltsev, interference

3rd Period
46:38 – 🇨🇦 GOAL – Backstrom (Tremblay)

GOALTENDERS
T: 🇷🇺 Tretyak (26-30)
T: 🇨🇦 Cheevers (17-21)

SHOTS ON GOAL
🇷🇺 11+7+3 = 21
🇨🇦 10+13+7= 30

ROSTERS
🇷🇺 Goaltenders: Alexander Sidelnikov, Vladislav Tretyak. Defence: Alexander Gusev, Vladimir Lutchenko, Yuri Shatalov, Gennadi Tsygankov, Yuri Tyurin, Valeri Vasiliev. Forwards: Vyacheslav Anisin, Alexander Bodunov, Sergei Kapustin, Valeri Kharlamov, Sergei Kotov, Yuri Lebedev, Alexander Maltsev, Boris Mikhailov (C), Vladimir Petrov, Vladimir Shadrin, Vladimir Vikulov, Alexander Yakushev.
🇨🇦 Goaltenders: Gerry Cheevers, Don McLeod. Defence: Al Hamilton, Rick Ley, Paul Shmyr, Rick Smith, Pat Stapleton (C), J.C. Tremblay. Forwards: Ralph Backstrom, Serge Bernier, Jim Harrison, Paul Henderson, Réjean Houle, Gordie Howe (A), Mark Howe, Bobby Hull (A), Andre Lacroix, John McKenzie, Marc Tardif, Tom Webster.

Article Credit: The Hockey News
Photo Credit: Team Canada 1974: The Lost Series – IIHF – HHOF – IOC