The Game
A goodwill get-together before the game was fraught with tension. Flyers announcer Gene Hart, who spoke Russian, taught Flyers owner Ed Snider to say a phrase in Russian wishing the best for both teams in the upcoming game. When the time came, there was no mingling whatsoever between the Soviet contingent and Flyers staff and players. When Snider took to the podium, he spoke tersely and omitted the phrase Hart had taught him. Snider later said, “when I looked at all those cold faces, I just couldn't do it.” Clarke later said that he, too, “really hated those bastards” on the Soviet side and could not wait to take to the ice against them once again.
The Flyers dictated the game's tempo and were able to take the body on the Soviet players and avoid getting caught in the Soviet up-tempo transition game. In the first period, with the game still scoreless, Flyers defenseman Ed Van Impe, who had just finished serving a penalty for hooking, left the box and immediately placed a hard hit on CSKA star Valeri Kharlamov, toppling the latter and causing him to lie prone on the ice for a minute. When officials refused to call a penalty, maintaining that Van Impe's check was clean, Red Army coach Loktev protested by pulling the team from the ice. Snider got into a shouting match with the president of the Soviet Hockey Federation, threatening to not pay for the series if they did not return to the ice. The Soviets prolonged the game stoppage by arguing to make their return to the ice conditional on the referee canceling their impending delay of game bench penalty. Eventually, they accepted the penalty and came back to the ice.
The game delay tactic backfired on them as they returned to find the Flyers even more resolute than before. The Flyers scored quickly after play resumed and never looked back. They outshot the Soviets 49-13 on route to their 4-1 victory.
Read more about this topic: 1976 Flyers-Red Army Game
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