A media presentation by Bruce Pardy, Kate Wand, and William Gervais.
The 1972 eight-game Summit Series between Canada and what was then the USSR has been described as a game for the ages and “the most transformative hockey series ever played,” according to Canadian goalie legend Ken Dryden.
The series began seemingly as a friendly exhibition contest (albeit during the Cold War). However, after the first game and Team Canada’s unexpected loss to the Soviets, the play became more than the stake of national pride: Team Canada was fighting for our way of life against an adversary who sought to tear it down.
When winger Paul Henderson’s winning goal in the final game lifted Canada to victory, his puck seemed to set in motion a domino momentum that would ultimately lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. At the time, it really did feel like the western desire for freedom had triumphed over the Soviet-era desire for control.
In 2024, we can see that clash between adversaries — freedom and collectivism — remains far from played out. The puck is on the ice and so are we.
This time the struggle has moved from without to within and is turning our team against us: that is, our leaders and fellow citizens who appear to believe that Canada should be a socialist country. But something prevents us from grasping the gravity of this capture.
Queen’s University law professor and executive director of Rights Probe, Bruce Pardy, points to our disbelief as “one of socialism’s most potent weapons.”
“In its Canadian campaign,” he says, “we are apt to rationalize that the trends in this country do not portend actual socialism, but instead constitute merely a gloss on our unshakeable foundations of free market liberalism. Unfortunately, that is not what the evidence suggests.”
“Canada’s Cold War” takes us inside the struggle of Canada 52 years on from Henderson’s victorious puck to reveal the new shape of an old foe as the clock strikes down towards the prospect of our defeat and the loss of our freedom, our flourishing, and our possibilities for greatness.