Hockey
Reviews
- “Roy MacSkimming’s book is a hockey and historical masterpiece. In looking back 25 years at the Canadian equivalent of the big American question – ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ – he has given fresh perspective and new meaning to the critical event that not only defined Canadian hockey but shaped world hockey for all the years to come. You cannot understand the game until you understand what 1972 meant – and you will not understand 1972 until you read Cold War.” - Roy MacGregor, author of The Home Team and The Last Season
- “Cold War brings into full technicolour the desire and glory, arrogance and greed. This book takes a legend and turns it into a story. It shows the game really belongs to those who play it.” - Alison Griffiths, co-author of Net Worth
- “The ’72 series was a very memorable and important part of my life. Cold War takes you back and gives you the feeling you were there. And Roy MacSkimming has really done his homework. I was there, but I still learned a lot from this enjoyable book. I only now realize how well prepared the Russians were for that series.” - Yvan Cournoyer, member of Team Canada 1972
Availability
Published by Greystone Books in hardcover in 1996 and in paperback the following year for the series’ 25th anniversary, Cold War has been out of print for several years. A few copies are on sale online at comparatively high prices.
A limited number of mint copies of the original hardcover edition, signed and inscribed by the author, are available by regular mail. To obtain a signed copy, send a letter with name and address and a requested inscription, if any, along with a cheque or money order for $50 CDN, inclusive of postage and handling, to Roy MacSkimming, R.R.3, Perth, ON K7H 3C5, Canada. Your copy will be shipped within a few days of receipt of the order.
Cold War
About the Book
Cold War is the definitive history of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. Published in 1996 on the eve of the series’ 25th anniversary, Cold War interweaves dramatic accounts of all eight games with player interviews and analysis of the series’ profound impact on hockey.
The publisher, Greystone Books / Douglas & McIntyre, writes:
“It was the greatest hockey series ever played – and it changed the game forever. In Cold War, Roy MacSkimming evokes as never before those legendary 27 days in September 1972: a time when hockey’s two worlds collided, as the perennial world champions from the Soviet Union finally tested themselves against the top professional stars of the National Hockey League.
“Decided only in the dying seconds of the final game in Moscow, the series captivated fans and non-fans alike with its explosive upsets and unrelenting suspense. Cold War combines rich period detail, illuminating anecdotes and thrilling hockey action with eyewitness accounts from some of the series’ leading figures. With help from Paul Henderson, Yvan Cournoyer, Vladislav Tretiak, Ken Dryden, Pat Stapleton, Ron Ellis, Harry Sinden, the late John Ferguson and many other participants, MacSkimming recreates the entire series: its heroes and goats, its characters and prima donnas, its incomparable moments of poignancy, courage, hilarity and shame.
“Cold War is also about a nation’s magnificent obsession. MacSkimming shows how Canadians’ passionate identification with their hockey roots transformed eight ‘friendly matches’ into a bitter, life-or-death struggle between the game’s superpowers – and into a highly symbolic confrontation between hostile political systems. Cold War artfully and memorably documents one of the great mythic dramas in the history of sport.”
Excerpt
Arriving home after a summer holiday in Europe, Ken and Lynda Dryden are puzzled by a billboard they pass on the drive into Montreal from Dorval Airport. The message is clever but cryptic: “TO RUSSIA WITH HULL.” It’s evidently a message about the forthcoming hockey series against the Soviets, mixed with some James Bond-ish jocularity. But what does it mean, exactly? Who paid to put it there? Something strange has been happening while they’ve been away, Dryden realizes; he has some catching up to do.
A few weeks earlier, while relaxing in the cafés of Vienna, the longish-haired, twenty-four-year-old Montreal Canadiens goaltender had accepted an invitation from Team Canada coach Harry Sinden to attend training camp in Toronto. Camp won’t begin until August 13, still three weeks away. But the expectations of Canadian hockey fans are already building to a fever pitch, and a furor has erupted over the makeup of the team. The people have been expecting, reasonably enough, that the best team possible will be assembled to represent them in the showdown with the USSR. Now they’re afraid it won’t be.
What Dryden learns when he phones around to family and friends is that Bobby Hull, owner of the most lethal slapshot in hockey, breaker (in 1966) of Maurice Richard’s once-indestructible record of fifty goals in a season, and newly minted millionaire, is being kept off Team Canada. Not in the least to Dryden’s surprise, this has precipitated a national emergency….
Summit Series Trivia Questions
- How many game-winning goals in the series did Paul Henderson score?
- Who was Team Canada’s leading scorer?
- Who were Team Canada’s two goaltenders?
- Team Canada had two brother combinations. What were their surnames?
- Which Soviet star later died in a car accident?
