00:00What I remember really about the Forum was just that sense of sheer electricity and of this atmosphere that was
00:11just, it was the inside of a balloon and the feeling was just pushing against the insides, stretching it sort
00:24of tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter,
00:27just ready to explode. And I mean, I had been in the Forum many times and where you could feel
00:37the building and feel everything inside that building. And I don't remember it feeling quite the way it did. And
00:44so no matter what the other anticipation had been in the previous month of how this was going to be
00:51easy and a lark and all the rest of it, once game time started to approach,
00:57the sense of enormity, the sense of importance, the sense of excitement just started to go. And I mean, you
01:09can tell it in that image, you know, of the, and I remember, you know, Phil Esposito describing that opening
01:16ceremonial face-off and where, you know, where he, as he said,
01:21he had to win that face-off, you know, ceremonial face-offs are not face-offs to be won. I
01:27mean, these, the, the dignitary drops the puck, the puck pretty much sits there.
01:32One of the captains picks it up, hands it to the dignitary, they shake hands, and that's the end of
01:36it. Well, Phil Esposito is, is there in that face-off circle as if there's five seconds to go protecting
01:44a one goal lead and, and it's in the circle nearest his net.
01:47I mean, it's a face-off, he has to win. Now, you know, that's not Phil unless the moment, you
01:56know, generates that kind of Phil. And so no matter what Phil was feeling in the month before, that's what
02:02he was feeling, and that's what the rest of us were feeling at that moment.
02:08Now, there was a nervous time. There was a nervous time, I'll tell you. I, during the National Anthem, I
02:13leaned over to Brad and I said, Brad, I think I just wet my pants.
02:17I mean, it was awesome. All of a sudden, you stood there and I, I was talking to myself and
02:21I said, what is a kid from the Thistle Rink in Kenora, Ontario doing here?
02:26I mean, I was, I was in awe, you know, when he realized that the whole world was watching it.
02:32It was a, it was a pretty awesome thing.
02:36I think people, today, it's easy to, to forget that back in 1972, we still had a Cold War going
02:42on and a lot of people, certainly I'm one of them, you know, this was a battle, this, between our
02:52way of life and their way of life.
02:53And we know, having been in International Hockey before, knew how they portrayed it and, you know, every time they
02:58won, it was a victory for their system over our system.
03:00And so, we get into that game and that first period, things started off going very well and we're hitting
03:07and I'm included, everything that is red that moves, we hit.
03:13The problem is, we weren't in game shape, we were a long ways from, from game shape, I suppose, what
03:18they were and by the second period when, you know, we can hardly move and, and I still can see
03:24Harmeloth coming by and just flying by.
03:26And, you know, you know, it's like waving the flag saying, honk, honk, you went through a red light, but
03:33they had that game conditioning, we didn't and, and, and until we got that, it was difficult and, and by
03:42then we knew it, that, you know, we, we weren't in the condition we needed to be to play a
03:49quality team.
03:52Is there a winner or a loser in that series? The winner is society. Our society against theirs. That's what
04:02I believe. And that's what drove me. Not country, not hockey.
04:07Because those guys were as professional as we were. I don't give a damn what they say. They were more
04:13professional than we were. Their whole life was that, even though they were in the army.
04:23Frustration was coming out and there's no doubt about it that we realized that the Russians were a good team.
04:32They played together for many years. They were young. I was 32. I think the average age of the Russians
04:39might have been 24 or 25. I'm not quite sure, but some of their top players were only 21 years
04:45old, 20, 22.
04:48And like Karlamov, 24 maybe. He's been in an Olympic competition, played against some NHL hockey players, feels he's good
04:59as anybody. And it showed. They, they came and made a very good impression.
05:07We start the game. Boom. We get a goal. Within two and a half minutes, we're up 2-0. Oh
05:15man, this is a cakewalk.
05:17Gary Bergman, my defense partner, we finished the, out the first period. It's 2-2. So we come off the
05:25ice and we're sitting there and he turns to me and he says, what do you think?
05:29I says, we're in trouble. He says, yeah, they're coming at us in waves. I said, are they ever? These
05:37guys are in shape. They are coming at us. We're in trouble.
05:43It was complete shock to everyone across Canada. I'm sure the fans were shocked. We were completely shocked. As players,
05:56we were caught off guard.
05:57It was not a good night. I don't think many of us slept very well. We all of a sudden
06:03had a reality check. Game one is over. We got blown out.
06:10What do we do from here? And I even remember Wayne Cashman walked into the room when that game was
06:18over. He wasn't playing that night. He walked into the room.
06:21And I think Phil was fairly close to me. And he walked in and Phil's eyes met his. And I
06:26remember Phil saying, we got problems. We got troubles.
06:30We knew now what was ahead of us. We knew we got ourselves into something here that could turn out
06:40to be not the way we envisioned it.
06:46And I think it all started to set in. And as the night went on and the next day, we
06:51all realized that already we're behind the eight ball and we've got a long way to go.
06:57And we also realized how important game two was. Game two became critical.
07:28Game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:36game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:38game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:38game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:38game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:38game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:38game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two, game two,
07:38game two, game two, game two, game two
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