This Day in Hockey History – March 7, 1954 – Soviet Union Becomes Global Superpower

Mar 7, 2020

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(Photo: Opening Ceremony, via Wikimedia Commons)

The rise of the Red Machine began with the Soviets sending their national ice hockey team to their first World Championship in 1954. Shocking the international hockey community, the newbies defeated the dominant Canadians with a 7-2 victory on March 7, 1954. The Soviets took home their first gold medal and proceeded to medal in every single IIHF tournament through 1991.

By 1954, the Soviets had only been playing the sport of ice hockey for about eight years. They planned to debut at the World Championship held in 1953 but waited the extra year when star forward Vsevolod Bobrov became injured. Since he would receive the IIHF’s prize for the 1954 tournament’s best forward, that was probably the smart decision.

The 21st Ice Hockey World Championships took place at Stockholm, Sweden between February 26 and March 7. The tournament was structured so that each team played all of the others so that medals were awarded based on total number of points.

Wearing “old-fashioned skates and tattered equipment,” the Soviets handily won five games then tied Sweden (at 1-1). As the heavy favorites, the Canadian team went undefeated in their first six games. The final game scheduled would pit the two against each other. Assuming Canada would win, tournament officials began selling tickets for a rematch between the Soviets and Swedes to break their tie.

On March 7, a capacity crowd of 16,725 gathered at the Royal Stadium’s outdoor artificial ice rink. Don Preston of Toronto (the manager of Canada’s team) hoped that all future world tournaments would be held at indoor arenas. “The organization of the present championship was superb, but the ice was never very good. Today it was very slow and prevented accurate shooting.”

Even on the slush-covered ice, the Soviet style proved too much for the struggling Canadians. The Boston Globe reported that the “fast-skating, hard-checking Russian team … simply skated the Canadians off their feet.” Admitting defeat, the Montreal Gazette noted that the Soviet “passes clicked” while Canada’s “went astray” and “their defence took competent charge.”

Apparently, the Canadians were “told to go easy on their checking rather than risk penalties for infractions of the unfamiliar European rules.” Preston explained, “We feared penalties which would rob us of whatever we could gain.” He also felt that the press had whipped up such animosity against his team that it influenced the referees. “What we were up against was a political situation.” Whether true or not, the Canadians were pinged with six of the eight penalties called during the game. Twice, this resulted in power-play goals by the Soviets. By the end of the first period, the newbies led 4-0, and after another period, they already had a 7-1 margin. With a Canadian goal in the third period, Preston claimed, “We went down fighting.”

Canada had been represented by the Toronto East York Lyndhursts (of the Senior B level) while the Soviet Union’s Moscow Dynamos (half made up of red army men) reigned supreme. Preston complimented, “The Russians are wonderful hockey players. Their skating, passing and stickhandling are excellent. They deserve the victory they got.” The Dynamos manager, Boris Myakinov, returned the compliment, “They played a hard game but we countered with speed and short passes.” However, he said, “The best team must win – and we were the best. But the Canadians gave us a harder fight than the score suggests.”

With a record of 6-0-1, the Soviet Union won gold. Canada’s 6-1-0 record gave them silver, and the home team of Sweden had bronze with 5-1-1. It was only the fourth time (in 20 appearances) that Canada had been defeated at Worlds. Bobrov (as the Dynamos’ captain) accepted the championship cup from J.F. “Bunny” Ahearne (VP of the IIHF).

For the first time, the IIHF gave out “directorate awards,” but looking back, their choices seem a bit odd. They named Bobrov as best forward even though two Canadians were the tournament’s top scorers. Then, they gave Canada’s Don Lockhart the award for best goalie despite Soviet Nikolai Puchkov having fewer goals against. To acknowledge all the medal-winners, the IIHF then named Sweden’s Lars Bjorn as best defenseman.

Thus began not only the hockey rivalry between Canada and the USSR but also Canadian dissatisfaction with not sending their best players to compete internationally. Appalled sportswriters across the provinces blamed the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) for sending a subpar team.

Everyone seemed to agree that the Senior B league would be considered the sixth level in North American hockey (following the NHL, AHL, Quebec and Western Leagues, Senior A, and Junior A). According to Milt Dunnell of the Toronto Daily Star, “The Swedes tried to tell us, months ago, that a team which couldn’t win consistently in a senior B league in Canada wasn’t good enough to send against the greatly-improved Russians. Hockey men in Britain and Norway tried to tell us. But we managed to be arrogant about it. No person was going to advise us how to run the game we had invented.”

Most critics agreed the solution was to send the best or don’t send anyone. Former NHL star Lionel Conacher stated, “We can’t weep about the Russians beating us 7-2, but we can do something about it in the future. We can send to Europe exactly what we’ve got, and that’s the best hockey players in the world, or we can stay right out of these championships.” However, as George Dudley (secretary manager of CAHA) explained, “We picked the best team we could find. We just couldn’t find a senior or junior team willing to play on the terms. The majority of our players in the better leagues are highly paid men.” Indeed, the Boston Globe’s report snarked, “Certainly the [NHL] players wouldn’t give up their salary checks … nor would NHL club owners put patriotism ahead of a successful financial season.”

Still, the Canadians and the Soviets knew that the effects of the upset would be felt long afterwards. Elmer Ferguson of the Montreal Herald avowed, “This is, in a sports sense, a national calamity, certainly a national humiliation, a mortifying experience, the more so in that it provides Russia with another sounding-board from which to blare forth its athletic glories” Conacher agreed that with this being their first tournament, “Its propaganda value cannot be estimated in my opinion.”

Press Attache Boris N. Ivanov, while giving comments on behalf of the Soviet Embassy, advised, “You will have to change your mind about hockey being your Canadian game. Seems it can be Russian too, is it not so?” The Soviets would prove that to be the case for the decades to come.