Learn about the five most important championships in hockey
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| Braden: Top 5 Most Important Championships in Hockey. |
| Ann: In this lesson, we’ll take a look at the top 5 most important championships in hockey. Also, we’re going to take a slightly different approach with this lesson. |
| Braden: That’s right. Hockey isn’t as well-known as some of the other major league sports, so with each section, we’ll give you a bit of history and background, so that things make sense. |
| Ann: Now, in hockey, the series are "best out of seven" which means whoever wins 4 out of 7 games wins. For example, if one team wins the first 4 games, the series is over. However, if one team wins 3 games and the other team wins 3 games, then everything comes down to the last game. This the the famed, "game 7" and is the most exciting of all games. |
| Braden: Our number five most important championship is between Canada and the Soviet Union for the Olympic Gold medal. |
| Ann: This was an incredible rivalry, but since the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, those times have past. |
| Braden: And Canada is often considered the hockey capital of the world and in 1960s, that supremacy was almost untouchable, until 1965. |
| Ann: That’s right. In 1965, the Soviet Union began winning almost every World Championship and the Olympic Gold medal. |
| Braden: For reasons that are still not understood, an extra series of championships was developed that brought the Soviet Union and Canada to the ice almost every year, beyond the ones that were already in place. |
| Ann: One of the problems is that in these World Championships and in the Olympics, professional players were not allowed, so all the Canadian players were college players. |
| Braden: Now, on paper, it was the same with the Soviet team. However, it became obvious that the Soviet Union was altering the papers and putting professional players on the ice. |
| Ann: In 1972, the rules changed and Canada put in professional players for the first time. The Olympic gold medal game 8 was tied 5-5. |
| Braden: Usually, there’s only 7 but there was a tie earlier in the series and a game 8 was required. |
| Ann: With 2 minutes on the clock, the Russians said they'd claim victory based on the goal differential. That just means in the previous games, the Russians had made more points. |
| Braden: Then Canadian Paul Henderson rushed the Soviets, scored the winning point, and took the series, and the Gold medal home for Canada. |
| Ann: Our number four most famous hockey championship is the Flames versus the Oilers. When the Flames relocated from Atlanta to Calgary in the '80s, the Battle of Alberta between the Flames and Oilers was on. |
| Braden: Now, Calgary fans made some noise, but Edmonton came out ahead in this rivalry, winning the Cup five times by the end of the decade. |
| Ann: With both teams facing growing financial concerns, the rivalry began to cool in the '90s, but is now alive and well again. It all came together in 1991. |
| Braden: That’s right, in what's considered one of the most thrilling series in the history of hockey, the Oilers knocked Calgary out in the first round, which was payback for Calgary taking the cup in '89. |
| Ann: And our number 3 most important championship is the 1967 Stanley Cup finals between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. |
| Braden: This, the longest and perhaps most bitter rivalry in the NHL, is as much about competing cities as it is about competing teams. |
| Ann: From 1937 to 1970, the Leafs and the Canadiens were the only two Canadian franchises in the league, splitting fans across the country. |
| Braden: In the Stanley Cup finals of 1967, the two teams met up. Game after game, they fought and played and the fans fought and loved it. |
| Ann: The Canadiens were favored to win and the series was hosted in Montreal. But there can only be one winner and this time, it was the Leafs. Even though it's been 50 years, the Canadiens are still bitter about that. |
| Braden: Our number two most famous championship game is the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City between Canada and the USA. For a bit of background information, the previous Olympics in 1998 was the first time the US had beaten Canada in the Olympics. |
| Ann: What's more, both the USA men and the USA women's teams took gold over Canada. This is important because Canadians don't like Americans to win at hockey. To them, it's a Canadian sport. Americans are not allowed to win. |
| Braden: When the Soviets won, it was bad. When a European team wins, it's angering. But when the American's win, it's war. In the Olympics, ever more so. |
| Ann: At the 2002 Olympics, the American men's and women's teams were favored to win again and had shown themselves to be exceptional teams, but it was Canada that won the gold, in both categories. |
| Braden: An interesting fact about this, the manager in charge of the ice placed a "loonie," which is a Canadian 1 dollar coin in the center of the ice. |
| Ann: He did this because there was a large logo on the center ice and the referees needed some kind of marker for where to drop the puck at the start of the game. Many Canadians believe it was a good luck charm. |
| Braden: And last, our number one most famous championship is the Miracle on Ice. This is a game that happened during the 1980 Olympics and is by far the most famous hockey game ever. They’ve even made movies about it. It’s a big deal. |
| Ann: During the Cold War Era, tension between United States and the Soviet Union was very high. |
| Braden: Better yet, tension between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world was very high. For example, the United States had boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow just recently and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. This is all right around 1980. |
| Ann: The Soviets claimed their hockey team was just another example of how the Soviet Union was better than every other country in the world. |
| Braden: The American teams had the same problem that the Canadians did in the Olympics, professional players were not allowed to play in the Olympics. |
| Ann: However, the Soviet Union was putting professional players on the ice. There was very little hope for the Americans to win against the professional Soviet Union team. |
| Braden: Yet somehow, the US played hard and at the beginning of the third period, they were tied 3 to 3. Then the US team captain scored with only 10 minutes left to make the score 4 to 3. People all over the world were leaping with joy. The US team of college and amateur players held off a professional Soviet team for 10 minutes to take the gold. So, that just about does it for this lesson. |
| Ann: Thanks for listening! |
| Braden: See you next time. |
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