|
PRESS ROOM 1974: Game 6
MONTREAL GAZETTE
by BRODIE SNYDER
October 3, 1974
Moscow
If you were writing up last night's sixth game
in the series
between Team Canada 74 and the Soviet Union's national
hockey
team for a police blotter - and it almost came to
that by the
end of it - you'd have to use a heading that read,
"beaten and
robbed."
That's what happened to the Canadians as the Russians
won a wild
one, 5-2 and took a stranglehold on the eight-game
series. They
lead now 4-2 in games with two ties and there are
only two left
to play - at the Luzhniki rink here tomorrow and
Sunday nights.
This was shaping up as a tremendous hockey game
at the 12-minute
mark of the second period with the Russians leading
3-2 and Team
Canada playing strongly after nearly being blown
out of the rink
in the first three minutes. But it all fell apart
in the next
44 seconds on some strange refereeing by Russian
Victor Dombrowski
and Canada's chances went down the drain.
The Soviet official sent Mark Howe off for cross-checking
Russian
captain Boris Mikhailov at 12:22 for an infraction
that had occurred
a couple dozen times earlier without being called.
Paul Henderson
and Bruce MacGregor were sent out as the forwards
to kill the
penalty, and just 22 seconds later, Valeri Vasilyev
and MacGregor
came together on the side boards near the center
red line.
Dombrowski had raised his hand signaling a penalty
to Vasilyev,
when the Russian defenceman dropped his gloves and
began throwing
punches at MacGregor.
"I saw him drop his gloves and I backed off",
MacGregor said.
"International rules say that the guy who throws
the first punch
gets a game misconduct and his team has to play
short for 10
minutes. There was no sense my getting into it at
all. The referee
was right there."
Vasilyev closed with MacGregor and they grabbed
onto each other.
When they were separated, the referee sent each
of them to the
penalty box for five minutes, forgetting all about
the two-minute
one he'd called on Vasliyev just seconds earlier.
"I didn't even take my gloves off", MacGregor
said. "It turned
the whole thing around."
It did indeed. Instead of equalizing the manpower
for the next
minute and a half and then giving Canada a one-man
advantage
for better than 10 minutes, the double majors left
the Russians
still a man up on the ice.
With the 5-4 power play, they scored just over
a minute later
to widen their lead to 4-2 and all but bury Canada's
hopes in
Game Six.
The frustration with the refereeing mounted as
the game went
along - the totals on the night were four minors,
one major,
and two misconducts, for a total of 33 minutes for
Canada, and
two minors, and one major, or nine minutes for the
Soviets -
and when the final horn sounded, with the Russians
in complete
control, war broke out.
The participants were Rick Ley and Valeri Kharlamov,
who scored
a picture goal again last night. They started punching
at the
Canadian blue line, then fell to the ice with Ley
on top, as
the other players of both teams milled around. When
order was
restored - there had been another brief brawl between
Paul Shmyr
and Mikhailov, - Kharlamov had blood streaming down
his face
from an ugly gash near his eye.
‘The referees are so horrible, you get awfully
frustrated," Ley
said. "They're hooking, and punching, and spearing,
but they
get away with it and we don't."
"Kharlamov had his stick in my stomach a couple
of times in the
last minute. But you can't do anything during the
game. But once
it ended I figured I could. No, I wasn't looking
for Kharlamov.
He just happened to be the closest guy to me so
I let him have
it."
The Soviet crowd's whistling - their method of
showing displeasure
- reached a deafening shriek, as the players left
the ice. Ten
of the Russians went directly to their dressing
room, refusing
to shake hands with the Canadians who were in the
lineup for
the usual post game pleasantries.
At a press conference afterwards, Soviet coach
Boris Kulagin
said, "under the Soviet criminal code, Ley
could be put in jail
for 15 days. A person like that is persona non grata."
Team Canada coach Billy Harris, showing temper
for the first
time in the series he has deliberately tried to
keep low key,
snapped "Does the same law apply to Vasilyev
in the second period?"
Answered Kulagin, "It's up to the referee
during the game but
after the game it is the criminal code."
A Russian reporter asked Harris why the Canadians
with their
vaunted hockey skills "have to play so dirty?"
Snapped Bill, "Are you kidding? According
to my international
rule book, Vasilyev should have got a minor and
10 minutes for
fighting."
"It's too bad", he added, "because
to that point it was a pretty
good hockey game."
The Soviets had started out as if this was the
night they were
finally going to do what had been expected of them
at the beginning
of the series - bomb the World Hockey Association
stars but good.
They had a goal in the first half-minute when Ley
made a bad
play inside his own blue line. Kharlamov stole the
puck moved
in and whipped it across to Mikhailov in the slot.
He beat Gerry
Cheevers easily with a high, hard wrist shot.
Marty Howe took a cheap elbowing penalty at the
53 second mark
and the Soviet had another goal 10 seconds before
he was due
to return, Vasilyev making a tremendous rush down
the left side,
speeding around J.C. Tremblay and beating Cheevers
with a flip
shot from close range.
The Canadians at that point woke up and Serge Bernier
who along
with Rejean Houle and Marc Tardif formed Team Canada's
best line,
had two glorious scoring chances from right in front
in the next
minute or so. The first one hit the crossbar and
bounced out
of danger, the second capping a neat around-the-net
passing play
saw Tretiak make a spectacular pad save.
"That was the difference" Cheevers said
afterward. I thought
Tretiak's early saves when it was 2-0, gave them
momentum. He
made the saves at the right time and I didn't."
The Canadians kept coming however, playing their
best hockey
since the second game of the series a 4-1 win in
Toronto, and
they cut the Russian lead in half before the end
of the period.
Tretiak made another good stop on Bernier, but the
pressure continued
and Shmyr blocked a clearing pass at the blue line.
He took a
low, hard slap shot from the point, and Houle standing
about
15 feet in front of and to the left of the net,
neatly deflected
it up over Tretiak's pad.
The Canadians were still flying as the second period
opened and
tied it at 6:15, Gordie Howe tipping in a 40-footer
by son Mark
who got the puck right on his stick after an errant
pass by Soviet
defenceman Gennady Tsygankov.
The tie didn't last long however, the Russians
taking a 3-2 lead
just more than two minutes later on a neat passing
play among
linemates Viacheslav Anisin, Vladimir Vikulov, and
Sergie Kapustin.
The series of short, sharp passes gave Anisin a
clear shot from
about 15 feet out on the left side, and he made
no mistake.
The Russians controlled the game in the third period,
giving
Canada few good scoring chances. Smith and Kharlamov
went off
for roughing at 10:54 ands then just as they stepped
back on
the ice, Vikulov, picking up his fourth assist in
two games after
sitting out in Canada - stickhandled though center
ice, and hit
Kharlamov with a perfect lead pass for the final
score.
Harris said afterward that he hadn't considered
taking the Canadians
off the ice to protest the referee's decision on
the MacGregor
penalty. "I've been involved with international
hockey for four
years and I've learned to accept it when the referee
takes control
of the game."
(Missing paragraph here)
When it was all over, Harris had the last word.
"We have to win
two to tie the series", he said. "We can
tie the series by winning
two. And we'll try to win Saturday and we'll try
to win Sunday."
|
