by Gare Joyce
Clark and John Miner of the Regina Pats were the two swing players on the team, defencemen who would play forward when the situation dictated. Simpson felt Clark’s heavy shot might come in handy with a faceoff in the Czech zone to the right of the goalie who’d been stoning the Canadians, Dominik Hasek.
Simpson had Clark and Bradley flip-flop wings, with Clark and his left-hand shot playing to the right of centre Adam Creighton and closer to Hasek. Off the draw, Creighton pushed the puck ahead and Bradley moved forward to gain control.
“I hadn’t played forward much, except in minor hockey, so I wasn’t always sure where to go, and that was my first shift of the game on the wing,” Clark recalls. “I saw Adam push the puck behind their centre, and headed right to the net. Then I pulled back from their defence to give myself a bit of space, and Brian fed me from the side. And I one-timed it.”
Right into the history books.
The quick shot beat Hasek, triggering a furious final six minutes and 13 seconds during which Czechoslovakia blitzed Canadian goalie Craig
Billington, looking for the winning goal that separated them from their first-ever gold medal. It never came.
“Hasek was really good,” Creighton said. “But Billington absolutely stood on his head.”
After the Canadians survived a faceoff and frenzied attack over the final 20 seconds of the game, they knew they had won the gold medal, and celebrated accordingly—but it wasn’t absolutely official. There was still a night game between the Soviet Union and Finland, and if the Finns won by eight or more goals they could finish first.
“And we knew those teams were too good for that,” Clark recalled. “But we still had to stay and watch, just to make sure. It was really rare in international hockey then for Canada to be up on goal differential, but that was Craig Billington’s goaltending. We took a lot of penalties, as we always do over in Europe, but Billy saved us. We allowed only one power-play goal all tournament, and that was the goal differential right there.”
Unfathomably, Billington didn’t make the tournament all-star team, but he did win the IIHF Directorate Award as best goaltender.
Billington, of the Belleville Bulls, and his backup from Michigan State, Norm Foster, had been the centre of a mild, but public, controversy during the pre-Christmas selection camp when they made the team and Patrick Roy was cut.
Dan Hodgson, here on
a breakaway against
West Germany,
chipped in with five
goals and two assists
in seven tournament
games.
“They left a lot of guys off the team who became Hall of Fame type of players, like Patrick and Gary Roberts, and some NHL players like Mario [Lemieux] and [Kirk] Muller weren’t sent back,” said Creighton, who was loaned to the juniors by the Buffalo Sabres, as was Bobby Dollas by the Winnipeg Jets. “That may be why we weren’t considered very highly. We weren’t expected to win by anybody, but on the team we expected to win.”
Clark pointed out that in the fall of 1984 there weren’t the advanced, and electronic, scouting techniques there are today. There was no under-18 national team and no summer training camp, and the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association had relied heavily upon Simpson, head coach of the Prince Albert Raiders, to know the western players, assistant Ron Lapointe of Shawinigan to be familiar with the Quebec players, and general manager Sherry Bassin of the Oshawa Generals to keep tabs on the Ontario players.
“And they went with their gut feeling,” Clark said. “We were a kind of no-name team but there were a lot of guys who eventually made the NHL. Out of 20, I’ll bet 16 played in the NHL for more than a cup of coffee.”
His guesstimate is bang on: Every player on the 1985 team spent time in the big leagues, accumulating a collective total of 209 seasons, and 10 players had NHL careers that lasted 13 years or longer.
“The reason we were able to do so well was that no one on that team had an ego about ice time or being the star,” Jackson recalled. “Wendel was going to be a high first-round draft pick, maybe even first, but he told the coaches that he’d do anything to make the team.”
And the coaches told him that “anything” meant playing both defence and forward. It also meant cutting his shaggy hair. He agreed immediately to both conditions.
After a team-building training camp and exhibition games in Scandinavia, the Canadians arrived in Helsinki still unsure about their chances. The Czechs had the tournament’s best player in Michal Pivonka. “I thought for sure Pivonka would be the next one to score 100 points for 10 seasons in the NHL,” Clark said. They also had the best goaltender in Hasek. The Finns were led by the two Esas: Esa Tikkanen, who had played some junior hockey in Regina, and Esa Keskinen, who would set a tournament record for assists over the next 12 days. And the Soviets had history on their side as winners of the previous two tournaments, and six of the first eight.
“When you’re going into the tournament now, you know a lot about the other teams, but we really didn’t know anything,” Clark said. “The teams from behind the Iron Curtain, the Russians and the Czechs, you’d watch them practice and the way they moved the puck … and you weren’t sure how you’d do against them. The European and North American systems hadn’t melded yet, and it was a
completely different style of play with all that puck movement, difficult to get used to, especially on the big ice.
“But it’s the way we play, our style of game, which won us that tournament.”
Canada had plenty of role players, striking the template for future national teams, and what they may have lacked in marquee power they made up for in physicality. Whenever they needed the big hit, they got it.
Simpson set a calm but determined atmosphere, Lapointe was more fiery and an instigator—before the Finn game he told Tikkanen, “We’re coming to get you Esa, we’re coming to get you”—and general manager Bassin, choosing his moments carefully, lit the emotional fire.
And the players, having trouble adjusting to Finnish food, “were living on Coke and chocolate bars,” Creighton said with a laugh.
Their diet might have been sketchy, but their play certainly wasn’t.
After beating Sweden with surprising ease 8–2 to open the tournament, Canada clobbered Poland 12–1 on Christmas Day, and dispensed with West Germany 6–2 on Boxing Day. Then, in their first stern test, against a U.S. team that included Mike Richter, Eric Weinrich, Craig Janney, and Brian Leetch, Canada was fore-checked mercilessly and fell behind 4–3 after two periods. But in the third period Simpson switched to a two-man-deep forecheck, and 28 seconds in Clark tied the
Claude Lemieux, left,
and Dan Hodgson,
right, celebrate a
goal in their 8–2 rout
of Sweden in the
tournament’s opening
game.
Wendel Clark, seen
here skating toward
his celebrating
teammates, scored
what turned out to
be the gold-medal-
winning goal. Months
later, he would be the
first overall pick in the
NHL draft.
score. Nearing the middle of the third period Creighton scored twice and Stéphane Richer once within a span of 3:18, and Canada won 7–4, going away.
That created a four-way tie for first, with the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Canada all at four wins. Their games against each other would determine the medals, and the championship.
Canada’s fifth game was against the two-time defending champion Soviet Union, “and we were very psyched up for sure,” Clark recalls. Sherry Bassin did a lot of the psyching, during a rollicking pre-game
speech in which he called on his players’ patriotism and evoked images of his own family history of persecution in Stalinist Russia.
“He’s probably one of the best motivational types I’ve ever heard,” Clark said, still in awe. “For that age group,
especially.”
“I think Sherry even went into the Russia room and reamed them out, too,”
Jackson said. “I remember him starting on the plane on the way over, and keeping it up all tournament, the motivation, telling us that this was our chance, showing us his ring from ‘82.
“And it was just us. There was no entourage like there is today. No TV cameras, and just one reporter from Canada who was there for the whole tournament. One reporter. Kids today wouldn’t believe that.”
The CBC’s Fred Walker called the games on radio, but only two were on TV. Yet as they continued to win, momentum and interest was building back in Canada—unbeknownst to the players in an era long before cellphones, the internet, and twenty-four-hour international sports TV networks.
One of those televised games was against the USSR. To counter the puck-savvy Soviets, Simpson put together a line of Clark and Bob Bassin plus Jim Sandlak—who had originally been cut, but was summoned to Europe when Dave Goertz was injured before the tournament.
“We were all very physical and we hit them,” Clark said, “all over the rink.”
The bang-’em-up principle worked perfectly, in large part because of Billington and the short-handed units. The Soviets were knocked off their game by big hits and fell behind 2–0. Then Canada managed to kill six straight penalties and finish fast, scoring three times in less than two minutes in the third period to win 5–0. Finland and the Czechs tied, leaving Canada as the only team with a perfect record.
Finland was next, and Tikkanen, never a shrinking violet, predicted a home side victory on New Year’s Eve, especially since Canada’s towering defenceman Jeff Beukeboom had been hurt against the Americans and would miss the game. But it ended 4–4, setting the stage for Canada vs. Czechoslovakia the next day.
“It was before the Iron Curtain fell, so they had both the Czech Republic and Slovakia to draw players from,” said Creighton. “They were very skilled, and they had Hasek. We didn’t know much about him. But he was very good.”
And so was Billington, as the Canadians had to kill five penalties and Czechoslovakia only two. The Czechs opened the scoring in the second period, but Sandlak tied it with five minutes to go in the frame. Pivonka, the dominant forward in the tournament, scored at 12:23 of the third period and a confident Czechoslovakia began thinking gold.
But just over a minute later, Simpson had his brainstorm, and sent Clark out for his only shift of the game at left wing.
“When I first saw Wendel I couldn’t believe how tough he was for a young guy and how hard he could shoot that puck,” Creighton marvelled.
The last shot Creighton saw Clark take that week gave him and his 19 teammates the gold medal.
“We had no idea how excited everybody was back in Canada,” said Clark, who was the NHL’s No. 1 overall draft choice six months later, and played only forward in the league, partly because of that goal. The die was cast when scouts had seen him play up front with such impact in Helsinki.
“There were huge crowds to greet us at the airports when we got home. But when I got back to Saskatoon I went straight from the airport to the team bus, for that hard three-game swing through Alberta with my junior team.”
Putting his goal and those 12 days in historical perspective, Clark said, “It was one of the most pivotal world junior tournaments ever because TV was just getting into carrying the games and Canadians saw us beat Russia and tie the Czechs. Canada became the best just when the tournament was coming back to Canada the next year. So the country had a lot of pride in that. And they sold a lot of tickets in Hamilton because of it.”
Craig Billington
matched Dominic
Hasek save for save
in the biggest game
of his career.
Playing for Canada
at the WJC was a big
step up for ninth-
round draft pick Luc
Robitaille, but it set
him on course for
scoring records,
awards, a world
championship, and a
Stanley Cup down the
line.
During his Hall of Fame career they called him Lucky Luc. You could make a case that the luckiest break Luc Robitaille ever got was a chance to play for the Canadian team at the 1986 WJC.
Unlike most players who end up on the Canadian roster at the tournament, Luc Robitaille wasn’t a high draft pick. The Los Angeles Kings selected him 171st overall in 1984. Those who have been first-rounders arrive with high expectations and often a lot of publicity. For Robitaille, he came in through the back door.
When his name wasn’t among the 44 players originally invited to the national team’s 1985 summer camp, Robitaille was disappointed. Then Luc got lucky. As it so often turns out, one man’s misfortune spells another man’s big break.
“Pat Burns, my coach with the Hull Olympiques, contacted me in the middle of July, a few days before the start of the camp, and asked me if I was in shape,” Robitaille says. “I told him yes, of course. He then went on to tell me that that was a good thing because I was to likely replace Stéphane Richer at the national junior team’s camp.”
Richer had injured himself during the summer and that injury gave Robitaille a chance to show what he was capable of in front of Terry Simpson, who was back as head coach of the national team for a second year in a row after winning gold in the previous season in Finland.
Canadian head coach
Terry Simpson had
faith in Luc Robitaille’s
offensive ability,
but his selection of
the Hull Olympiques
winger was a contro-
versial one.
So Robitaille showed up at camp with a knife between his teeth, determined to impress the team’s management staff. His play was a revelation to the Canadian team’s staff.
“I was the best scorer during the intra-squad games at the summer camp and gave them no other choice but to invite me back to the final camp in December.”
Robitaille’s play was also a revelation to the team that had drafted him. At the Canadian team’s camp, Robitaille outperformed Los Angeles first-round draft pick Dan Gratton, who was selected by the Kings 10th overall in 1984. Luc was lucky to get an invitation, but outperforming Gratton was no fluke. Robitaille would end up scoring 668 goals in his 20-year NHL career and Gratton only seven in his cup-of-coffee stint.
Robitaille’s play in the QMJHL merited his selection to the team: he had registered 36 goals and 63 assists in only 33 games when he made the trip to the Canadian team’s camp. Still, his big break almost came undone on the eve of the WJC. Just before the Canadian team’s camp was set to start, he suffered an ankle injury during a regular-season game in the QMJHL. Robitaille did his best to hush up the fact that he was less than 100 percent. “I wanted to be part of that experience so badly that I wasn’t going to let a minor injury force me to abandon it all.”
Robitaille was among the 20 players selected by Terry Simpson. His selection over Tony Hrkac, a member of the Olympic team coached by Dave King, caused quite a stir at the time, especially since Hrkac had played well
with the national team that was preparing for the 1988 Olympic Games. It also turned out that Robitaille was the only Quebec league player on the team. Two other Quebeckers, Alain and Sylvain Côté, were also on the WJC roster, on loan from their respective National Hockey League teams.
The WJC was a bigger stage than any Robitaille had played on to that point in his junior hockey career. Adding to the excitement was the fact that the tournament was being held on Canadian soil for the first time since 1978. A huge crowd at Hamilton’s Copps Coliseum cheered for the Canadian teenagers, who started the tournament with a 12–1 pounding of Switzerland. The one-sided nature of the game didn’t take anything away from Robitaille’s excitement.
“I had never experienced anything like it at the time,” Robitaille said. “It was a great experience for
me to play for my country even though I wasn’t on the ice often, being part of the fourth line. Playing for Canada at age 19 was incredible,” he said.
The Canadian team went on to win its next four games. On January 2, Canada and the Soviet Union, tied for first place with identical records of 5-0-0, were to play for the gold medal because there was no medal round at the time. The sixth game was going to be the ultimate confrontation. The Soviets had a decided edge over Canada in WJC experience, with 10 players back from the bronze-medal winners the previous year.
“In 1986, playing against the USSR was a big deal,” Robitaille said. “We didn’t really know the Soviet players and there was without a doubt a lot of
Shayne Corson
brought muscle up
front for Canada and
led the team in goal
scoring with seven
tallies in seven games.
Craig Billington
emerged as the
starting goaltender
and carried the team
to five straight wins
en route to the pivotal
game against the
Soviet Union.
nervousness and a great atmosphere in the locker room. We had big, physical players like Shayne Corson, Jim Sandlak, Terry Carkner, and that was part of our game plan to use this to our advantage and intimidate the opponent.”
Corson, the best Canadian scorer in 1986, sent the Copps Coliseum crowd to its feet in Hamilton when he beat Evgeny Belosheikin, the Soviet goaltender, at the seven-minute mark of the first period, but it was to be the only such moment for the crowd: the USSR won the game 4–1. “We played a very physical game, but we had a lot of penalties and that just cut our legs from underneath us,” said Robitaille. When he harkens back to that game against the Soviets, he says the disappointment feels as fresh as if it happened yesterday.