I Helped the USSR National Team Get People’s Canada Cup

On September 11, 1981, the Soviet and Canadian national teams met in the decisive game for the Canada Cup.

The tournament organizers were so confident of their countrymen’s triumph that they had alotted every single best player award to Canadians only even before the final match started. The game was won, though, by the USSR team — 8:1.

At an award ceremony Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the Hockey Tsar Alan Eagleson (an unofficial title bestowed on him by The Globe and Mail) handed the Canada Cup over to the Soviet team’s captain, Valery Vasiliev.

Next morning when the tournament winners were about to return to the USSR with the prize they had won, Eagleson ambushed them at the Montreal airport. Accompanied by two armed policemen, he accused the Soviet team of an attempt to steal the Canada Cup and demanded that it should be returned to its owners.

Echo of the scandal, provoked by Eagleson, reached Winnipeg and the local George Smith Trucking company. Its owner felt indignated by Eagleson’s behavior:
— In sports, winners should be rewarded while losers must accept their defeat with dignity. By taking the Canada Cup away from its winners, Eagleson disgraced our country!

George Smith issued an appeal:
— Let’s show Eagleson who is a cheapskate! Let’s chip in a dollar or two to make an exact copy of the Canada Cup which we will send to the Soviet national team…

I was stationed in Washington then filing reports to Izvestia and learned about this story by pure chance, leafing through American newspapers. I called Moscow and Boris Fedosov, Izvstia’s sports editor, told me that nobody in the USSR was aware of the public campaign George Smith had launched.

— Do your best to get in touch with him as soon as possible! — Boris told me. — It’s a great, sensational story!

With assistance from the United Press of Canada I found out George Smith’s phone number, placed a call and heard his voice:
— George Smith Trucking Company. How can I help you?
— My name is Alexander Palladin. I am Washington bureau chief of Izvestia and would like to talk to George Smith.
— That’s me! You must be interested in my initiative to make a Canada Cup replica for your team? It has already got tremendous support from lots of people, including NHL “stars” Bobby Orr and Guy Lafleur. As soon as I launched the fund raising campaign, money transfers started to pour in to my office from all over the country with notes like: “Enclosed is a dollar. I am not a sports fan or a communist, just an honest Canadian,” “Thank you, George: you saved our national reputation!”. Winnipeggers come to my office every day to make contributions on foot, in cars and wheelchairs. And Americans joined this campaign, too. A New Yorker sent a $20 check with a note on its reverse side: “Give that bastard Eagleson a hard time!” Many of us cannot stand Eagleson since 1972 when he caused a shameful scandal in Moscow during the hockey Super Series. He doesn’t care that our Prime Minister personally presented the Canada Cup to your team captain, and he doesn’t give a damn how we look in the eyes of the whole world now.

George Smith also said that Eagleson had lied by claiming that the Canada Cup was presumably worth $10,000: “I found a foundry that will make an exact copy for $1,500.”

Smith’s initiative got spectacular response from thousands of Canadians. Some drew Canada Cup’s sketch, others provided nickel, needed for the duplicate. And a Winnipeg woman drove 100 miles in her car to deliver the cup’s model to the foundry located in Winkler. Her 11-year-old son held the model in his hands all the way, proud of such an honor.

A few days later George called me:
— I just got the cup in my office! Neither the foundry workers, nor the craftsmen who chromed the cup, accepted a single cent as a reward. They said that this was their personal contribution. In the meantime, we got a total of $32,000 in donations! We will now use it for children’s and youth hockey development in Manitoba.

George had something else to share with me:
— Can you imagine? Eagleson wanted to throw in some money, too, into the common pot, but I declined, and every single newspaper in Manitoba quoted me: “We will not allow this asshole to smear our cup.” In response this son of a bitch declared that the Canada Cup is a property of the federal government, with nobody allowed to export it, even in copies. He threatened me with criminal prosecution. As soon as he said that I got a cable from a group of prominent lawyers: “Don’t worry, George! If he sues you, we will defend you for free.”

Nevertheless, Eagleson managed to send RCMP officers with orders to wait outside Smith’s office and to confiscate the duplicate cup as soon as it arrived.

This prompted George to call Ed Schreyer, Canada’s Governor General whom he had known since childhood:
— What’s going on, Eddie? Why on earth did they get such an assignment?

The Governor General made proper arrangements, and the RCMP blockade was lifted.

Smith also learned from Ed Schreyer that the prize which Eagleson had taken away from the USSR team was Canada Cup’s duplicate while the original was kept in Governor General’s office. In other words, Eagleson had fooled everyone once again…

Since then, Smith introduced the “People’s Canada Cup” term which Izvestia and Komsomolskaya Pravda used, too, filing my reports about this whole story. Meanwhile Boris Fedosov got a consent from Izvestia’s management to invite George, his wife and their son to Moscow as honorary guests at international hockey tournament sponsored by our newspaper. From that day on, my corresponding reports were accompanied by an image of a smiling Snowman (Izvestia Cup’s logo) with a bouquet of flowers in his right hand.

George was moved to tears:
— Such an honor for a simple man like me!.. I will soon be 50, and I’ve never been anywhere except for the USA and Mexico when I drove trucks. And now I will be able to visit the USSR!

On October 3, 1981, Smith arranged a ceremony in Winnipeg to hand over the People’s Canada Cup to a high ranking official of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. Dozens of Winnipeggers gathered at Portage Avenue where Francis Jobin,  Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, gave the said prize to Vladimir Mechulayev along with a book listing the names of all North Americans who had made the donations.

In mid-December George and his family flew to Moscow with  a transfer in Washington. This provided me with an opportunity to meet him in person.

George turned out to be a formidable personality and a worthy recipient of the title of a hockey goodwill ambassador.

Upon their return from Moscow, George called me again:
— We enoyed stunning hospitality! People in the streets, service personnel at the Metropol Hotel, boys and girls at hockey arena who asked me to sign programs and booklets — everyone everywhere turned out to be amazingly friendly people. Our special thanks to organizers of the Izvestia Prize tournament!

P.S.  A few days ago an award ceremony concluding the annual All-Russian open competition for the prestigious prize, named after Anton Delvig (Alexander Pushkin’s comrade and co-founder of the Literary Gazette), took place in Moscow. Alexander Palladin, our regular author, won the top award in “Artistic Words in Prose” nomination with his book “War on Ice as Witnessed by Its Chronicler”. You have just read an excerpt from this work.

Congratulations to Alexander Palladin on Winning the Prestigious Competition!