The Greatest Comeback

How Team Canada Fought Back, Took the Summit Series, and Reinvented Hockey

By: John U. Bacon

Narrated by: Braden Wright

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

The series you thought you knew: the first book written with the complete co-operation of the whole team

“They’d stolen our beer and our steaks, and then to make it worse . . . they give us this Russian beer—the warm, skunky sh*t, and not the good, cold Labatts our sponsor sent. I remember thinking, ‘These pricks will never beat us again! They are not going to win another f*cking game.’”

—Rod Gilbert

When the Summit Series began on September 2, 1972, Cold War tensions could not have been higher. But that was the whole point of setting up this unprecedented hockey series. Team Canada, featuring the country’s best players—all NHL stars, half of them future Hall of Famers—would play an eight-game series, with four games played across Canada followed by four in Moscow. Almost everyone expected Team Canada to crush their untried opponents eight games to zero, with backups playing the last four games.

But five games into the series, Team Canada had mustered only one win against a tie and three stunning losses. With just three games left, Team Canada had to win them all, and on Moscow’s wider, unfamiliar rink. They would also have to overcome incompetent referees who sparked stick-swinging fights; surmount every obstacle the Soviets and even the KGB could throw at the players and their wives; invent a hybrid style of play combining the best of East and West, one that would change the sport more than any other factor before or since; and break down old rivalries to become a real team.

And they did it all.

With John U. Bacon’s unparalleled access to the players through dozens of interviews, The Greatest Comeback presents the incredible story of how this series inspired amazing heroics against long odds and under almost inhuman pressure—an experience so unforgettable that the players still consider the series to be the highlight of their storied careers.

©2022 John U. Bacon (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Great hockey book.

John is an awesome author. He has a great style about him. Another recommended book by the author would be Let Them Lead.

enjoyable

For hockey fans, reliving this classic series is a lot of fun. It took place when I was a young child so I do not remember it personally, But I was familiar with most of the NHL stars from later in my childhood. One deficiency of this book is the absence of the Soviet perspective. The author did a good job interviewing many of the Canadians who are now older men, and their wives, as well as poring through interviews of some of those who have passed away, but the author does not appear to have tried to interview the Soviet players and/or officials. I think this would have taken this story to an awesome higher level. There might even be archives in Russia that could offer insight into the goals and 'playbook" of the Soviet officials who tried to mess with the Canadian players when they were in Moscow eg through playing loud noises in the hotel, making 2 am phone calls to their rooms, giving them crappy food, etc.) Understanding the inside story of these machinations would have been awesome!