Summit Series - Background

Background

From the beginning of the IIHF World Championships, Canada would send a senior amateur club team, usually the previous year's Allan Cup champion, to compete as the Canadian entry. From the 1920s until the 1950s, Canadian amateur club teams won most of the world championship and Olympic titles. Professional Canadian players would play instead in the various professional hockey leagues, the best reaching the National Hockey League. Starting in the 1940s, the Soviet Union developed a national team with the goal of winning world championships. Players from around the Soviet Union were brought to play in Moscow on teams such as Central Red Army (HC CSKA Moscow) and Moscow Spartak, playing regularly together on the national team. The players were amateurs by strict definition only, as they were elite players playing hockey full-time in their native country. Some were given other titular professions (e.g. army soldiers playing full-time for the CSKA Moscow hockey team) to maintain amateur status for Olympic eligibility.

Entering international play in 1954, the Soviet team under the tutelage of Anatoli Tarasov started to dominate the international competitions, and won nine consecutive championships in the 1960s. Canada, in response, developed a national team of its own. But Canada's best players usually became professionals and the national team featured mostly university players. The Canadian team did not win any championships and was looked upon as a failure. By 1969, the Government of Canada had formed Hockey Canada, an organization to co-ordinate Canadian international play with its amateur organizations and the NHL. In July 1969, on a trial basis, the inclusion of nine professional players for any event for one year was agreed to by the IIHF. Canada entered a team with five professionals in the Izvestia tournament at Christmas in 1969, and nearly won the tournament. The IIHF then convened an emergency meeting in January 1970, at which the rule was rescinded. In response, Canada withdrew from IIHF play. The 1970 IIHF World Championships, scheduled to be held in Canada for the first time, were transferred to Sweden after Canada refused to host the event.

The Canadian embassy in Moscow learned of the Soviets' interest in a series initially through reading an article in the Soviet Izvestia newspaper in the winter of 1971–1972. Diplomat Gary Smith, responsible for sport and cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union, read that the Soviets were looking for a new challenge in ice hockey. Smith met with Izvestia sports editor Boris Fedosov, followed up with a meeting with Soviet hockey boss Andrei Starovoitov. The Soviets were ready for a true best versus best series between its national team and Canadian professionals. After the meeting, Canadian ambassador Robert Ford passed the matter to Ottawa to negotiate a series. Hockey Canada was given the task to nail down the terms for a series.