Summit Series changed how NHL players prepared for the game

Serge Savard, a key Team Canada defenceman in the 1972 Summit Series, realizes the team that defeated the Soviet Union was ill-prepared physically when the first puck dropped. But Savard, now 76, says there were reasons for Canada’s apparent lack or preparedness, some of them hard to understand in today’s hockey world.

“In our dressing room in the ’70s, we didn’t have a bike, we didn’t have weights, we didn’t do anything but on-ice activities for between an hour and two hours,” Savard said, referring to a Montreal Canadiens team that won six Stanley Cups in the decade. “Some players were more dedicated than others, some were running in the summer. But when I first arrived on the team, I was making $10,500 and I can tell you I had to work in the summer. I happened to work in the (Molson) brewery (that owned the Canadiens).”

Savard joined about a dozen Team Canada teammates Wednesday at RS, the downtown sports bar at Maple Leaf Square, before the team was feted before the Canadiens-Leafs game at Scotiabank Arena on the 50th anniversary of their Summit Series victory.

“In our time, the season was a lot shorter and we were not making a lot of money,” Savard said. “The (Soviets) trained 11 months a year; we couldn’t train 11 months, we had to work in the summer to survive. (Team Canada captain) Phil (Esposito) told us he was still working in the mines when he started playing with the Bruins.”

Savard said he was working in the Molson marketing department in 1972, and his hockey salary rose from $10,500 to $15,000 when Montreal began winning Cups. The NHL’s current minimum salary is $700,000 (U.S.).

After Canada’s Game 8 win over Russia, Savard suggested the Canadians would have “won all eight games” if the series started then. After going 1-2-1 in the first four games of the series, Team Canada took a two-week spell to train and play games in Sweden before the final four games in Moscow. Canada won the last three.

Goalie Ken Dryden said yearlong preparation wasn’t part of hockey’s culture in the ’70s.

“If (head coach) Harry (Sinden) said to us … and again, it wouldn’t have occurred to Harry or (assistant coach) John Ferguson … but if it did occur to them, and they said, ‘OK, hey, these are our opponents, they play 11 months a year. And you guys, through the Stanley Cup playoffs, then all through the summer, you’re going to do off-ice training all summer and also go on the ice a bit to prepare for this series,’ it wouldn’t have happened,” Dryden said. “It’s just not the way things were done.

“And it’s not just that, but there was no need to do it because we were the best. And if we were the best, the assumption was we did it the best way. Just because (the Soviets) did it differently, if they weren’t the best, big deal that they did it differently.”

Savard and teammate Peter Mahovlich also said the Canadian players “hated” each other during those NHL days when there were 14 teams in the league. That feeling was prevalent when Team Canada gathered before the Summit Series and it contributed to the slow gelling of the Canadian team, Savard said.

Fifty years to the day after his Summit Series-winning goal, Paul Henderson, right, and his Team Canada teammates were celebrated at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

Savard, though, believes the initial shock of just how well the Russian were prepared, and the eye-opening attention they paid to training, helped move the NHL toward its year-round dedication to preparation.

“Those guys trained 11 months a year, and now we train 11 months a year,” Savard said. “When we came back in Canada, I remember (Montreal coach) Scotty Bowman, he started to change things, doing things that we never used to, and we hated it. Scotty started having us do push-ups on the ice, and we hated it. So things started to change, and I think one of the reasons the game is what it is today is because of those changes.”