Dryden writes book on ‘72 Summit Series

Ken Dryden didn’t want to write about the 1972 Summit Series.

The Hall of Fame goalie has, over the past 50 years, helped with projects about the historic games between Canada and Russia, but whenever someone asked him to pen a book on the subject, he politely declined. The stories about have already been told, Dryden said.

Then COVID-19 hit.

With the borders closed and his kids and grandkids living in the U.S., his plans for Christmas 2020 quickly changed.

“So I had a few days where I wasn’t doing what I was imagining that we would be doing. I just said, ‘OK, if I was to write what I’m not going to write, what would I write?”’ Dryden told The Canadian Press.

Relying solely on his own memories, he sat down and, “in a kind of a frenzy,” wrote his latest book: “The Series: What I Remember, What it

Felt Like, What it Feels Like Now.” The hardcover was published Tuesday by McClelland & Stewart.

“It was unexpected, but it was fun to try to put it all together,” Dryden said.

Over 192 beautiful pages, the book combines one player’s memories of the Summit Series with photos, letters and other mementoes to give the reader a deeply personal glimpse at eight games that united a nation.

There’s a postcard sent to Timmins, Ont., by a Canadian who attended a game in Moscow. There are editorial cartoons that depicted the differences between Canadian and Russian hockey fans. There’s a scrap of envelope on which Canadian winger Frank Mahovlich drew up a play.

Some of the photos and objects surprised Dryden as he worked on the book, including a black-and-white photo taken at Simpsons department store in Toronto that shows hundreds of people watching, rapt, as the drama of Game 8 played out nearly 7,500 kilometres away.

These are the images Dryden and the rest of the team didn’t get to see nearly 50 years ago.

“It’s like `holy cow,”’ he said. “We were in Moscow at that time. I would never have guessed that people would be watching in quite that way.”

Another item that captured Dryden’s attention was a journal entry from a young Igor Kuperman, chronicling in Russian every detail of Game 5, from the goals to the jerseys worn by each side.

In the entry, the author saw a universal experience.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that a kid in Red Deer would do who was just following this kind of a series,” he said. “They would do it with the same kind of love and commitment, and they would do it in their own way. But it would express the same thing.”