There used to be the Canada Cup series that occurred in September every 3 or 4 years . It was a tournament that happened, not surprisingly, in Canada and involved all the best hockey nations. At that time professionals were not allowed to play in the Olympics, so the Canada Cup was important to hockey-mad Canadians because it was the only time that our best players could truly compete against the best from other strong hockey nations like the USSR, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Finland. The Americans also played but hadn’t yet developed into a hockey power. Canadians had no expectations when it came to Olympic Hockey so we eagerly anticipated the Canada Cup. It was always in different cities in Canada and on the smaller ice surfaces of NHL rinks, so Team Canada had a distinct advantage over the European teams who played on larger ice surfaces. A year after the Miracle on Ice Olympics in Lake Placid, a Team Canada roster that included superstars like Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy, Guy LaFleur, Ray Borque, Dennis Potvin and Larry Robinson, lost 8-1 to the USSR in the Canada Cup title game. The fact that a team USA roster full of NCAA level players could even compete with the Soviets, let alone beat them on an Olympic sized sheet of ice is absurd. A true miracle indeed.
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"It's nice to be nice to the nice." Frank Burns
