Euro Hockey Dirty Too

The following article is a column written by Vancouver Sun columnist Jim Taylor from 1972. When everyone was pointing to the dirty play of the Canadians during their international days of September 1972, Taylor was one of the few to point out that the European game was dirty as well, although in a different way.
 
This may strike you as peculiar. Around the National Hockey League the suspicion has always been that if Wayne Cashman didn't writ e the book on dirty hockey he at least drew the filthy pictures. Now he's yelling dirty pool. It's like the Brinks mob complaining about shoplifters.
 
The incredible thing is that he's right. All things considered, international hockey - for all its complaints over the brutality and sadism of the Canadian game, for all its charges of gangsterism and butchery - is far dirtier than the game played in the National Hockey League.
 
Not rougher, mind you, dirtier. There is a difference. Rough is Cashman hockey - boarding, high sticking, elbow in the ear hockey. Dirty is the stick speared into the stomach, the butt end rammed at the crotch. And more than anything else, dirty is the kick with the skate blade.
 
The backs of Phil Esposito's legs are bruised and cut. he's been kicked. When Gary Bergman suddenly went ape in that third period tangle on the boards with Boris Mikhailov, it was because he'd been kicked at least three times. It is one of the bigger weapons in the international arsenal and maybe it's a good thing these guys don't play in the the NHL. helmet or no helmet, one kick and somebody would get killed. Esposito has no doubts about the style over here. He calls it the dirtiest hockey he's ever been involved in - junior or pro. Cashman was so indignant he attended last night's press conference, trying to find a reporter who'd ask the Russian coaches how they felt about kicking with the skates on.
 
It's a shame, because as this series goes on it becomes more and more obvious that the international game, with its wide ice surface and less emphasis on contact, is by far the better of the two. But the chippiness goes on, and every day the Soviet press takes another shot at the "dirty tactics" of Team Canada.
 
"We're learning from them," says Harry Sinden. "We're learning a lot of things. We're learning, for instance, that interference is a big play over here. Blocking out a man without the puck is accepted practice. We're going to have to pick it up."
 
Meanwhile, they head into Thursday's eighth and deciding game serene with the knowledge that as a vehicle to promote international goodwill this series is as successful as a kick in the chops.