‘Best team ever formed’: Legends from 1976 Canada Cup team reunite

Team Canada's Darryl Sittler puts the puck past Czechoslovakian goalie Vladimir Dzurilla to score and win the Canada Cup in overtime in Montreal, on Sept. 15, 1976. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chuck Stoody

TERREBONNE — Serge Savard says the best Canadian hockey team he ever played on wasn’t the one that beat the Soviet Union in the legendary 1972 Summit Series.

That honour belongs to the less-celebrated - but supremely talented - squad that won the inaugural Canada Cup in 1976.

“The best team ever formed,” the Montreal Canadiens legend said.

The 1976 Canadian men’s hockey team reunited on Tuesday at Le Mirage Golf Club for Savard’s annual tournament, almost 50 years after Darryl Sittler scored the championship-clinching goal in a 5-4 overtime win against Czechoslovakia on Sept. 15, 1976, at the Montreal Forum.

Almost anyone alive in Canada in 1972 can recall where they were when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal with 34 seconds left to lift Canada past the Soviets. The game played out against the backdrop of the Cold War -- and the goal became one of the most iconic moments in Canadian history.

The winning team that represented Canada on the world stage four years later doesn’t get the same glory, but the talent on the ice was at a higher level, according to Savard.

“That team was much better than ’72, because ’72 is special, it’s in the history books, but in ’72 we didn’t have Bobby Hull, we didn’t have Bobby Orr,” Savard said. “And in ’72 that was the first year of Guy Lafleur in the National Hockey League. We didn’t have those three dominant players.”

Orr - one of the best players of all-time -- missed the 1972 series due to knee injuries that would plague him throughout his career.

The dynamic, game-changing defenceman made up for his absence in 1976, winning the tournament MVP in his first and only international tournament for Canada.

“He just was at the end of his line,” head coach Scotty Bowman, days away from turning 92, said of Orr, who played only 26 NHL games after the Canada Cup before cutting his career short.

“He came to the arena around 1:30, 2 o’clock. The games were around 8 o’clock, maybe 8:30, and he iced his knee continuously.”

Sittler, meanwhile, said Orr hardly practised with the team.

“No morning skates, didn’t need it. He was there when it counted,” he said. “Best player of that tournament even though he was hobbling on a couple of knees.”

Hull, who led the NHL in goalscoring seven times, joined the lineup in `76 after a WHA contract with the Winnipeg Jets made him ineligible for the `72 roster. Lafleur, meanwhile, was nearing his peak as a dominant force in the mid-to-late ’70s.

Altogether, 18 eventual Hall of Famers hit the ice against Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Sweden, the United States and Finland in the first “best-on-best” international hockey tournament.

“Myself being there was probably a little bit of a weak link,” said Larry Robinson, who won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenceman the following season. “It’s pretty darn hard to not agree that it might be the best team that Canada’s ever had.”

Orr, who declined to speak with reporters, walked arm in arm with Savard, steps ahead of Sittler and captain Bobby Clarke, while 12 other team members followed in Canadian jerseys a chip shot away from the fairway.

Along the road leading into the golf club, banners of each legend hung on the flagposts, with the late Lafleur and Hull pictured in black and white.

Lanny McDonald was already well on his way to becoming an NHL star in 1976, but even he was awestruck to be sharing the bench with his hockey heroes.

“You look around the room and you’ve got Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Larry Robinson, Guy Lafleur -- the list just went on and on,” said McDonald, then 23. “Danny Gare and I are the two young guys, and we’re both thinking, `What the heck are we doing here?’

“I was like a kid in a candy store.”

Sittler still recalls his winning goal like it was yesterday.

The Toronto Maple Leafs star broke down the wing and faked a shot to beat Czechoslovakia goalie Vladimir Dzurilla wide, a move that assistant coach Don Cherry reminded players to try against the aggressive netminder.

“(Cherry) had walked through the dressing room and he reminded the guys that ‘Hey, if Dzurilla comes out, if you have a breakaway on the side, make sure you look up,”’ Sittler said. “I looked up and he was out, and threw it in the empty net and that was it.”

Beyond featuring what some believe to be the best roster of all time, the 1976 Canada Cup -- the first of five such events -- set the stage for NHL players to compete at the world championships and Olympics.

Along with the ’72 Summit Series, it also helped open Canadian hockey fans’ eyes to the skill and talent of European players.

“It set the bar for those tournaments like we had this year with the 4 Nations,” Bowman said.

By Daniel Rainbird.