Flyers versus Red Army

Philadelphia Flyers versus USSR Red Army team (Central Sports Army Club Moscow, Russian: ХК ЦСКА Москва)

HC CSKA Moscow was one of the most dominant sports teams in history, winning the Soviet championship for 13 consecutive years between 1977 and 1989. CSKA played many games against NHL clubs, including a North American tour in 1975 and 1976. In total, the Red Army Club played 36 games against NHL teams from 1975 to 1991 and finished with a record of 26 wins, 8 losses, and 2 ties. One of the more memorable games during this series was played on January 11, 1976, against the Philadelphia Flyers, who at the time were the two-time defending Stanley Cup Champions.

The 1975-1976 series between various NHL teams and two touring Russian teams, the powerhouse Red Army team (CSKA) and the somewhat lesser Soviet Wings squad, was another seminal moment in the tenuous relations between the NHL and the Russian hockey program. The games, like the subsequent Canada Cup Tournaments which also began in 1976, were not treated like exhibitions. Coming into the final match of their NHL series, the Red Army was still undefeated, having tied the Montreal Canadiens and beaten the other NHL teams they faced. Their final game was to be played in the Philadelphia Spectrum against the two-time defending Stanley Cup Champion Flyers.

The game was notable for an incident where, after an extremely hard body check delivered by the Flyers' Ed Van Impe, CSKA's top player, Valery Kharlamov, was prone on the ice for a minute. Their coach, Konstantin Loktev, pulled the team off the ice in protest that no penalty was called. They were told by NHL president Clarence Campbell to return to the ice and finish the game, which was being broadcast to an international audience, or the Soviet Hockey Federation would not get paid the fee that they were entitled to. They eventually complied and lost that game 4-1.

Background

Before CSKA had arrived in Philadelphia, the Russian players and hockey leaders were aware of the rough reputation of the Broad Street Bullies. A Pravda cartoon had portrayed the Flyers as Neanderthal thugs wielding clubs instead of sticks. Flyers captain Bobby Clarke's reputation was already cemented due partly to his actions in the 1972 Summit Series, where he delivered an infamous slash to the ankle of Valeri Kharlamov in Game Six.

Flyers owner Snider had several reasons to dislike the Russians, in addition to Soviet-Western political tensions. Tough, often contentious, negotiations took place with Soviet officials before the series became a reality. Snider was actively involved in the negotiations. The Flyers' owner found his patience tried by the difficult negotiating process with the Soviet officials. (Snider was criticized by some as being hypocritical for allowing his hockey team to participate in a series that would pump money into Soviet coffers.) Finally, there were strictly hockey-related reasons for Snider to dislike the Soviets so strongly. The diametrically opposite styles of hockey practiced by the Flyers and the Red Army Team created an instant source of conflict. Although the Flyers of the mid-1970s were actually a very skilled team (with the likes of future Hall of Famers Bobby Clarke, Bill Barber, and Bernie Parent plus all-star caliber talents such as Reggie Leach, Rick MacLeish, and defensive defenseman Jimmy Watson), they were best known for their aggressive brand of physical play. Snider's competitive fires were stoked by the realization that the chance to play the Soviets represented a chance to prove that his squad was the best team in the world and much more than a goon squad.

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 Russian contingent and the 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 Russian side and couldn't wait to take to the ice against them once again.

The Flyers dictated the tempo of the game and were able to take the body on the Soviet players and avoid getting caught in the Russian up-tempo transition game. In the first period, with the game still scoreless, Kharlamov was toppled by a hard check from Flyers defenseman Ed Van Impe, the latter who had just finished serving a penalty for hooking. Red Army coach Loktev responded by pulling the team from the ice. When they felt ready to return, the Soviet team would be returned to the ice and try to start asserting their own game plan. 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 ended up backfiring on the Soviets as they returned to find the Flyers even more resolute than before. The Flyers scored quickly after play resumed and never looked back.

After the game

Shero jokingly told low-scoring defenseman Joe Watson that he 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 wrote 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."

Legacy

A little more than a decade after the showdown in the Spectrum, the Soviet Union was crumbling politically. In order to raise funds, the Soviet hockey program started to negotiate to auction off selected prominent national team veterans to be dispersed to NHL teams. The Sniders refused to get the Flyers involved in seeking to acquire any Soviet players, citing the fact that the Soviet officials were demanding a large portion of the players NHL salaries be diverted into their hands rather than being given to the players. Later, of course, the Flyers began to scout and draft Russian players on the same basis as they would players from any hockey country.

However, the ramifications of the Flyers initial boycott were that the Flyers got a late start into tapping into the now-open Russian market, which spilled over into an early scouting disadvantage during the early period after the Soviet Union dissolved. Indeed, during the 1997 Stanley Cup finals, the Flyers were facing the Detroit Red Wings who had a sizable contingent of Russians.

In a sign of just how much times had changed, during the 1990s, the Flyers employed a full-time scout, Evgeny Zimin as their main scouting representative for Russia and outlying former Soviet republics. Still, Snider's Flyers have never had a large Russian presence.

ee also

*1975-76 USSR Red Army ice hockey tour of North America
*CSKA Moscow
*Summit Series
*Canada Cup

External links

* [http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/clips/15206/ Broad Street Bullies vs. The Red Army - CBC Digital Archives]
* [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://perekrestok.ca/forum/%3Fpage%3Dforum%26topic_id%3D10010&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DValery%2BKharlamov%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_ru%26sa%3DG%26as_qdr%3Dall Writeup on game in Perekrestok.com (translated)]
* [http://www.flyershistory.com/cgi-bin/hm.cgi?006hm Flyers History writeup on the game]
* [http://www.zippyvideos.com/9762925383252226/flyers_vs_red_army_-_11_jan_76/ Video summary of the game]