🇷🇺 Soviet Union 3-2 Canada 🇨🇦
Summit Series, Game 8
Luzhniki Palace Of Sports, Moscow 🇷🇺
Sunday, 06 October 1974

Unlike in 1972, there would be no climatic Game 8 in 1974. Team Canada had lost the series.

An official protest was lodged with Soviet officials, and even the Canadian ambassador Robert Ford waded in, calling Bobby Hull’s non-goal “absolute robbery,” though he ignored demands to issue a formal diplomatic protest with the Kremlin. When it failed, there was talk of boycotting the final game, but, ultimately, it went ahead.

“We knew the series was over,” Mark Howe says. “But I remember the guys in the locker room talking, ‘Hey, we’ve got a lot of pride in this room. We know people may have given up on us and stuff, but don’t quit on yourselves. Let’s go out and perform, and let’s try and win this hockey game.’”

Bill Harris dressed a strong lineup, with only a few minor changes, while Boris Kulagin rested five regulars, including Vladislav Tretyak. Yet, even with the series secured, Soviet officials were intent on winning it off the ice, too.

Ahead of the game, the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation sent a letter to Team Canada’s organizers stating its players would leave the ice at the first sniff of dirty play. During the warmup, the public-address announcer then read the letter to the crowd in both Russian and English, garbled grammar and all:

“Taking into consideration the fact that the players of Team Canada ’74 have repeatedly broken the agreement signed by the World Hockey Association and the USSR Ice Hockey Federation on adhering to the rules of the International Ice Hockey League, which was expressed by dirty play, appeals to the referee and spectators, the USSR Ice Hockey Federation states that such competitions in the spirit of the best traditions of sport and friendship, is forced, that at the first infringement of the above-mentioned agreement, to stop play of the last game.”

According to one report, when Gordie Howe heard the announcement, he leaned over to a Canadian scribe, smiled and said, “This is liable to be a short f—ing game.”

In the end, the game went ahead and was played until the end, though not without more incidents. In the second period, Jim Harrison cracked Vladimir Lutchenko across the face with his stick, and then Vladimir Shadrin did much the same in a collision with Pat Stapleton. Both drew blood, and both received five-minute majors from German referee Josef Kompalla.

Hull got his seventh goal of the series to lead all players in scoring, but Team USSR won the game 3-2, for a 4-1-3 series victory. After scoring three consecutive game-winners to close out 1972, 31-year-old Paul Henderson went pointless in Moscow in 1974.

The Howes combined for 14 points in the series. Gordie, with half of those points himself, including three goals, had given his all in the seven games he played. Only Hull, Alexander Yakushev and Ralph Backstrom, Team Canada’s MVP, produced more points.

Gordie later called the series the second-biggest thrill of his career, after playing with Mark and Marty in Houston.

In the dressing room after the game, Mark was sitting next to Gordie when a reporter came over and asked his father how he felt. Mark recalls the exchange going like this:

“How do you feel, Gordie?”
“Well, I feel like a winner.”
“But you lost the series!”
“Yeah, but I get to go home.”

Gracious in defeat, with the game of life always in view, Gordie Howe had seen enough of the Soviet Union. At one point in the series, Gordie and Mark watched in horror from the bench as a doctor lifted up the thigh pad of an injured Soviet player, slid it up his leg, pulled down his hockey sock, then whipped out a needle and jammed it into his flesh from two feet away.

“I know how Dad was,” Mark Howe says. “Dad always tried his best and did whatever he could, but when the game’s over, the game’s over. I’m sure he was disappointed he’d lost, but you have to put life in perspective, and he kind of did that in one little sentence. He had an incredibly quick wit and sense of humor.”

BOXSCORE
1st Period
07:57 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Webster, roughing
13:08 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Yakushev, tripping
13:47 – 🇨🇦 PP GOAL – Backstrom (Tremblay, Hull)
15:26 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Tiurin, holding
18:21 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Hamilton, elbowing

2nd Period
22:18 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Ley, roughing
22:18 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Popov, interference
26:12 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Harrison, cross checking
26:27 – 🇷🇺 PP GOAL – Yakushev (Shadrin)
30:34 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Harrison, charging
30:34 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Harrison, hooking
39:03 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Mark Howe, cross checking

3rd Period
40:53 – 🇷🇺 PP GOAL – Shalimov
42:15 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Shadrin, high sticking
42:15 – 🇨🇦 PEN – Stapleton, abuse of official 10 min. misconduct
46:59 – 🇷🇺 GOAL – Shalimov (Yakushev)
52:42 – 🇨🇦 GOAL – Backstrom (G. Howe)
57:59 – 🇨🇦 PEN – G. Howe, hooking
59:20 – 🇷🇺 PEN – Tiurin, tripping
59:59 – 🇨🇦 PEN – team, bench penalty

GOALTENDERS
W: 🇷🇺 Sidelnikov (22-24)
L: 🇨🇦 Cheevers (27-30)

SHOTS ON GOAL
🇷🇺 10+12+8 = 30
🇨🇦 10+8+6 = 24

ROSTERS
🇷🇺 Goaltenders: Alexander Sidelnikov, Vladislav Tretyak. Defence: Alexander Gusev, Viktor Kuznetsov, Vladimir Lutchenko, Yuri Lyapkin, Yuri Shatalov, Yuri Tyurin. Forwards: Vyacheslav Anisin, Sergei Kapustin, Valeri Kharlamov, Sergei Kotov, Alexander Maltsev, Vladimir Petrov, Vladimir Popov, Vladimir Shadrin, Viktor Shalimov, Vladimir Vikulov, Alexander Yakushev.
🇨🇦 Goaltenders: Gerry Cheevers, Don McLeod. Defence: Al Hamilton, Marty Howe, Rick Ley, Brad Selwood, Pat Stapleton (C), J.C. Tremblay. Forwards: Ralph Backstrom, Serge Bernier, Jim Harrison, Réjean Houle, Gordie Howe (A), Mark Howe, Bobby Hull (A), Andre Lacroix, Frank Mahovlich, Marc Tardif, Mike Walton, Tom Webster.

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