The Soviet-Canadian Rivalry and a Japanese Battleground: Canadian Hockey Professionals Meet the Soviets, 1970–77

Canada and Soviet Russia both used ice hockey as a form of public diplomacy during the Cold War, most notably during the détente years.  In the 1970s the combination of détente, the retirement of longtime IOC president Avery Brundage, and Canada’s withdrawal from world amateur hockey brought a new era of competitions between officially amateur Soviet players and openly professional Canadians in what were the only meaningful meetings between the world’s hockey superpowers from 1969 to 1977.
            This paper considers Soviet-Canadian hockey during this period, and these nation’s efforts to use hockey to bolster their respective international images.  It also considers the important roles of Japan, Sweden and the USA in this story.  Japan played Olympic hockey, hosted the ’72 Winter Olympics and was the only nation aside from Canada, Russia or the USA to host a competition matching the Soviets and the pros.  Japan had close ties to the West, but was also the subject of Soviet diplomatic blandishments to encourage Japanese neutralism; these efforts included other types of hockey diplomacy.  Sweden was a traditional hockey power, a Cold War neutral, and its best players began playing in substantial numbers in North American pro leagues in the 1970s.  Some of these players competed alongside Canadian pros against the Soviets; Sweden’s national team competed at international tournaments with Canadian pros and Soviets.  The role of American interests in pro hockey complicated US-Canadian relations and contributed to Canadian concerns that the USA – more immediately than the Soviets – posed an existential threat to Canada.  This paper relies primarily on Canadian, Russian and American sources to argue that Cold War sports were not just proxy warfare but a concerted effort to convince people of the superiority of different systems of developing human potential.