1976 Flyers-Red Army Game - After The Game

After The Game

Flyers head coach Fred Shero jokingly told low-scoring defenseman Joe Watson that the latter had set the Soviet hockey program back twenty-five years by scoring a shorthanded goal on the great Vladislav Tretiak. Amidst the Flyers' pride in their convincing victory against an outstanding team, the seeds of contentiousness had grown even further. To this day, Tretiak, who views the tie game in the Montreal Forum as the highpoint of the series, says that the Flyers won by playing “rude hockey.” Coach Loktev called the Flyers “a bunch of animals.” The Flyers, meanwhile, left with the belief that the Soviet team had confirmed their feelings that Russian players were skilled but soft.

Milt Dunnell of the Toronto Star had written this comment after the close of the series: "The Moscow Musketeers had to put a big fat zero on their aptitude test by pulling one the dumbest tricks in sports. They hauled their team off the ice. Loktev knew the conditions before he came. Nobody loves playing in Philadelphia. Once he accepted a game with the Flyers, under NHL rules, with an NHL referee, he was in the same boat as the Toronto Maple Leafs or Vancouver Canucks when they come to town. Loktev wanted his team to know what's it's like to play the Flyers in Philly under NHL conditions. Well...that's what it's like."