National Post (National Edition)
Mr. Smith goes to Moscow
MEMOIR DETAILS DRAMA BEHIND HISTORIC 1972 CANADIAN-SOVIET HOCKEY SERIES
There were 34 seconds left on the board when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal that made history. The date was Sept. 28, 1972, and the Canadian-Soviet Hockey series, miraculously brought off in the midst of the Cold War, had reached its dramatic climax in Moscow's Palace of Sports. After a hard-fought, back-and-forth procession of games on both sides of the ocean, Canada had ultimately triumphed — and lasting friendships would emerge among the opponents.
In Moscow there was jubilation among Team Canada players and the diehard fans who had flown over by charter aircraft to cheer them on. But what about the wider reaction in Canada itself?
Well, it proved potent enough even to disturb the sanctity of a Stratford Festival performance of King Lear. Festival veteran William Hutt would complete the play's famous storm scene with the line: “Ladies and gentleman, Canada has just beaten the Russians six to five.”
Gary J. Smith was the young Canadian diplomat entrusted with the job of ensuring that this legendary 1972 series happened. And in his new memoir, Ice War Diplomat, he relives the excitement of that last-minute victory over a formidable opponent — and also the odd sense of isolation he and others were experiencing at this historic moment.
“There was the feeling of being in the eye of a hurricane ... shielded, blinded from what was happening outside, back home in Canada,” he writes. After all, they were in the Soviet Union, engulfed in paranoia, secrecy and KGB surveillance.
So when the word started arriving about the reaction back home, there was a renewed sense of fulfilment among the Canadians who had laboured to make the series happen after weathering crises that could have torpedoed the endeavour at any time — including an eleventh-hour dispute over refereeing that had Canada ready to pack up and leave.
“Ninety per cent of the Canadian population watched that game on television or listened to it on the radio,” Smith says now. “On that famous Thursday, the whole country ground to a halt. When we won, people poured into the streets yelling and carrying flags — they were so happy. This had welded the population together.”
Smith was just 28 at the time, and in writing this book, he wanted to do more than just recreate an exciting chapter in Canadian hockey history. He also wanted to introduce Canadians to the many faces of diplomacy as it needs to be practised: In Soviet Russia, for example, it helped to acquire a tolerance for vodka.
“I hope readers of this book will take away some knowledge of diplomats and diplomacy.” Smith tells Postmedia. “We've always had great trouble getting the average Canadian to understand what diplomacy is all about. “By relating it to hockey, I hope readers will say — OK, that's what a diplomat does and that's why it's important.”
Which is why on page 152, we learn about a telegram from Ottawa setting down Team Canada's food and drink needs in Moscow — beginning with 250 quarts of milk and 32 cases of CocaCola. Then a further crucial paragraph: “Please arrange for the storage of 300 pounds of meat to arrive in Moscow September 20 under arrangements being completed between Team Canada and Canada Packers.”
Now retired after a long and distinguished career in Canada's foreign service, Smith is relaxing in his Eastern Ontario home, remembering events of 50 years ago as if they happened yesterday.
“Being a diplomat is about new things all the time,” he stresses. “The job is constantly changing. So here I was with a chance to be involved in hockey, which I had followed from the time I was a youngster — and yeah, I was excited.”
But because this was Moscow, with the Cold War smouldering between Communist Russia and the Western democracies, Smith and his wife existed in a “pressure cooker” atmosphere. His posting there was largely due to his marriage: in the eyes of Canada's foreign service, that status made him less vulnerable to blackmail.
“You don't know who's on your side.” Smith is now speaking in the present tense. “You've been briefed about the KGB and the bugging that goes on and the money that's offered and the sex that comes at you and the ideological persuasion that tries to convince you to switch sides and go over to the workers paradise. There's also the bureaucracy — and the general difficulty of living in Moscow ... also the RCMP always had an eye on what you were doing. You had to keep your eyes and ears open all the time.”
The dream of a historic Canada-Soviet series had supporters in high places. Both Canada's Pierre Trudeau, alert to the possibilities of détente through sports, and Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin were hockey fans. But for youthful diplomat Gary Smith, overseeing a proposed series that would start with games in four Canadian cities in early September and finish in Moscow, treacherous waters lay ahead.
One reason for this was the slippery Alexander Gresko, allegedly the deputy head of the International Department of the Soviet Ministry of Physical Culture and Sport — but in reality a KGB officer.
“You could say that the KGB was the equivalent of Hitler's Gestapo in Germany,” Smith says bluntly. “This was the guy they'd brought out, so you had to deal with him.”
The book is a treasure house of anecdotes, with two of the most memorable involving Phil Esposito. The first has to do with his now famous interview with CTV after Team Canada suffered a humiliating loss in Vancouver and was booed by fans. “We love Canada,” an emotional Esposito told a national audience — so why, he plaintively asked, all this booing?
There were those who saw his stance as a call to war, with sports columnist Roy MacGregor observing that what happened in Vancouver was “akin to a country booing its own army.”
Another aspect of the Esposito legend emerged in Moscow when his skate slipped on a dropped carnation petal and he went flying. Once upright, Esposito cheerfully responded with a sweeping bow — to Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev's box.
“His backside is on the ice, his legs are splayed apart, and he makes a joke of it,” Smith remembers. “Some 150 million people are watching on Soviet television, and right then they're witnessing a major difference between Canadians and Russians. They all knew that if a Russian player had fallen like that he would have had to scamper back to the blue line in disgrace.” And possibly be exiled to Siberia.
There are other moments in the book to be cherished. Team Canada coach Harry Sinden, enraged by the bad refereeing in Moscow, hurls a stool and then a chair onto the ice. Trudeau whizzes around the Kremlin grounds on a motorcycle filched from a scandalized Moscow cop. During the Winnipeg games, a KGB dignitary sneaks off to a local cinema to watch The Godfather and is enraptured by the “ability of the Corleone family to obtain what it wanted by whatever means.”
Still, there's also a rueful note to Smith's memories because Vladimir Putin's Ukraine invasion has left plans for a gala 50th anniversary celebration this autumn in jeopardy.
“Everything's in a period of hiatus,” says Smith, who was in Moscow a few months ago to assist in the filming of a new documentary on the games. He has no idea what will happen to the proposed stamp and coinage issues or to the various events being planned. But he fervently believes this half-century-old “friendship” series offers lessons for today.
“Let's blame Putin but not hate the Russians as a people,” Smith says.
“This hockey interaction showed how we were able to find common ground. What concerns me now is that all the good might be thrown out with the bathwater.”
We've always had great trouble getting the average Canadian to understand what diplomacy is all about. By relating it to hockey, I hope readers will say — OK, that's what a diplomat does and that's why it's important.
— GARY J. SMITH