Dryden looks back on 1972 Summit Series

With his recently published book, "The Series: What I Remember, What It Felt Like, What It Feels Like Now," Hall of Fame goalie Ken Dryden offers readers an up-close look at the landmark 1972 Summit Series, an emotional eight-game showdown between NHL players representing Canada and an all-star team from the Soviet Union.

From the Soviet Union's stunning 7-3 victory in Game 1 at the Montreal Forum on Sept. 2, to Canada's dramatic 6-5 victory in Game 8 to win the series on Sept. 28 in Moscow, the Summit Series pitted hockey systems and political ideologies against each other in a compelling, historic two-team tournament over one month in 1972.
A lawyer, educator, lecturer, author and six-time Stanley Cup champion with the Montreal Canadiens, Dryden spoke recently with NHL.com about his book, playing in the series, and its lasting impact on its 50th anniversary.

Ken Dryden's new book delves deeply into the historic Summit Series, during which he went 2-2 in his four games played. Penguin Random House; Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images Sport Classic
Do you think there's a philosophical tone to "The Series" with the benefit of the 50 years that have passed since the eight games were played?
"I'm not sure that I would understand this book as being anything philosophical. More than anything, it's an attempt to put a reader in the moment as I was reliving it for myself. … I mean, people have their own reference points, right? If they're of a certain age, it might be the Canada Cup in 1987, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Or if they're younger, it might be the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Sidney Crosby's (gold medal-winning overtime) goal. All they have about 1972 are the stories from their fathers or grandfathers, or things they've read or heard. … The essence of my book is instant and immediate and intense and intimate and personal and in real time."
You had played 47 games, including the regular season and Stanley Cup Playoffs, in the Montreal Forum before you skated onto the ice on Sept. 2, 1972, for Game 1 of the Summit Series. You write that "this night was different" and that the Forum was "in full frenzy." How different was it for Game 1 compared to games you played for the Canadiens?
"The Forum was already dramatically different from other (NHL) buildings. I start the book by saying that the series 'felt like a scream.' At the Forum, the energy just picked up to a point where it got higher and louder and louder, and just when you thought it couldn't get higher or louder, it got higher and louder. The Forum got louder and more energized for playoff games, but when you feel it getting louder and more energized than even that, you're not quite sure what it means and you're not quite sure what to do with it. That was part of the experience of 1972, the newness of it all. Even those things that are supposed to be familiar aren't quite familiar, and almost nothing in that series felt familiar. … The unpredictability was only the outcome of it. In this series, it never found any kind of predictable path. It was always finding a new one, and you always had to find an answer to that. It wasn't just that the outcome was in doubt, the next moment was in doubt."

Summit Series rival Vladislav Tretiak (left) and Ken Dryden at Montreal's Bell Centre on Jan. 29, 2007, reunited on the night that Dryden's No. 29 was retired by the Montreal Canadiens.
You had no time to process the 7-3 loss in Game 1, immediately flying to Toronto for Game 2, which Canada would win 4-1 two nights later with Tony Esposito in goal. You woke up in your Toronto hotel room the morning after Game 1 without a Sunday paper, without the internet or talk radio or TV sports channels. Canada was having a nervous breakdown, but to you, from inside the team, did it seem like nothing had happened?
"You hope that nothing had happened. I mean, your desperate hope was that if there was no evidence around you, then maybe nothing did happen. … Teams and coaches are great about adapting. The moment a game ends, if you lost, it's about everything you did that was wrong, and nothing was right. It probably feels that way for an hour or two. And then before you go to sleep, you start to feel a few things about what's next. When you wake up, you're already into the beginning of the next game, rather than the entrails of the last one. … You go pretty quickly from despair to a new focus and hopefulness."
In Phil Esposito's emotional interview with CTV's Johnny Esaw in the moments after a 5-3 loss in Game 4 at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, which put Canada behind 1-2-1 with the series shifting to Moscow, he told the nation that Team Canada players cared deeply about this series. Did that have any kind of effect on you or your teammates?
"People kept saying, 'That was the rallying moment for you (players),' and I'm like, 'No it wasn't.' It wasn't because of Phil's interview. Perhaps without any intention, Phil was speaking to what was on the country's mind, that they thought we were overweight, out of shape, overpaid and, worst of all, that we didn't care. We cared desperately. We have cared about this game all of our lives and here, at this moment, people are saying that we've got so much money that we don't care. The look on Phil's face, the sweat pouring down his face, his eyes drooping, the passion in his voice, the public seeing and hearing that passion, the message they got is, 'They really do care.'"

Ken Dryden dives to cover a puck during Summit Series action in Moscow. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images Sport Classic
You fly home from Vancouver and spend two days with your eyes patched because they've been scratched by your contact lenses. Was there any symbolism to that, Canada down 1-2-1 heading first to Sweden, then Russia?
"This wasn't the time for symbols, and that's why I wrote the book. Symbols are things that are overviews from the future. … You don't feel, you just get at it. You've got a game tomorrow; you've got to find an answer. This is something utterly immediate."
Does the need for immediate action conflict with feeling the moment?
"Feelings get in the way of doing things when a game begins. … You're immersed in it, and that generates feelings, but it's the other stuff in between that just takes you down and gets you focused in the wrong direction, in wallowing in what's already happened. It's done. You know that. Just get on with it. It's wonderful to feel sympathetic about yourself and 'poor you' and all of that, but who cares? There's a game to play."

Ken Dryden makes a save during an early 1970s Montreal Canadiens game at the Forum.
You didn't have goaltending coaches back in the day, no specific resource into which you could tap when you needed direction or support …
"That's right. In 1972, this was about moments that were happening and our having to do something about them. So you didn't have a goalie coach? Who cares? You didn't have a psychologist? Who cares? It was up to you to find the answer. That was part of life in 1972. We didn't have massive equipment or a mask that was very protective. Who cares? We had a series to play. We had a series we needed to win. That's what the experience was about. It wasn't about what wasn't. It was about what was, and that's what I've tried to do with the book, have the reader experience it as if it was then, at that moment. Otherwise, it's all just a bunch of war stories, and we've all heard them."
Would you have wanted to work with a sports psychologist before or during the series if one had been available to you?
"I don't know. I haven't worked with a sports psychologist, and it would have to be somebody who was really, really, really good, who you could really trust. … We were essentially trained to be our own psychologists. We had to find our own way through it, and we did. I think that's part of the pride that that we felt then, and part of our achievement in it. As I say at the end of the book, we hung in there. And that's a very hard thing to do when everything seems to be falling apart. When you find a way to hang in, then things can happen."

Ken Dryden in his familiar resting pose at the Montreal Forum during a break in early 1970s action.
You write about how incredible it would have been to be an observer of the series, being among fans in Canada watching it. There's a photo in the book of dozens of people in a Toronto department store during Game 8, watching TVs in the appliance section. How deeply do you wish you could have just watched?
"The only thing that I regret about the series is that I wasn't home as well. … I'm a sports fan. I know what it would have been like. It would have been this 27 days of incredible ups and incredible downs and next moments that you were absolutely unable to know or anticipate. It was fantastic for them. This was a series that you didn't watch by yourself. You watched in groups of people, in families, in offices and classrooms of people. That's the way it was taken in. … Game 8 takes place entirely during school hours and work hours. Out of a Canadian population of 22 million, 16 million people watched it. That's crazy."
The politics of the day won't allow members of the 1972 Soviet team to come to Canada for various celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the series. How special might it have been to get together again and share your stories?
"Not so much sharing stories because we don't have a common language to do that, but I think more being in each other's presence. There's a sharing of an experience, to have a moment when you only need to look at the other person and know that he knows, and know that he knows that you know. That in the end you went through something together and something that mattered then, and that it came to matter still now. There is the importance of the great opponent that puts you through your toughest times and also puts you through your biggest tests, makes you discover things about yourself. Sometimes they're things you don't like to discover, and other things that are amazing to discover, and that's what the great opponent does. That's what the routine opponent doesn't do. That's why you hardly remember games against the routine opponent but absolutely remember those against the great opponent. That's what the Russians were to us and what we were to them."