Tony Esposito was reluctant Summit Series hero for Canada 50 years ago

It was first out of deep loyalty to his older brother, then a sense of national pride, that the late Tony Esposito signed on to be a part of Team Canada for the historic 1972 Summit Series.

Never was it his enthusiasm for the competitive challenge of suiting up with an NHL all-star team 50 years ago this month to face an unknown team of Russians, four games to be played in Canada, then four more in Moscow.

"Without my brother," says Phil Esposito, indisputably Canada's leader and best player, "we don't win that series."

Statistics back up the legendary forward's claim, Canada eking out a last-gasp 4-3-1 win.

The three goalies of the 1972 Summit Series in their club-team uniforms: Tony Esposito (left) of the Chicago Blackhawks and Ken Dryden of the Montreal Canadiens (right) flank Vladislav Tretiak of Moscow's Central Red Army. Lewis Portnoy/Hockey Hall of Fame; Bruce Bennett, Getty Images; Hockey Hall of Fame

Tony Esposito was the best of the three goalies who played in the landmark eight-game series based on won-loss record and goals-against average, his totals superior to those of teammate Ken Dryden and Russia's Vladislav Tretiak.

Esposito won two games, lost one and tied one, with a goals-against average of 3.25 and a save-percentage of .882, yielding 13 goals on the 110 Russian shots he faced. Dryden was 2-2 (4.75 and .838, 19 goals allowed on 117 shots); Tretiak was 3-4-1 (3.87 and .884, 31 goals on 267 shots).

Phil Esposito, 80, still mourns the loss of Tony, the Chicago Blackhawks legend who died on Aug. 10, 2021 at age 78 following a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

"I think of Tony a lot," Esposito said this week. "I miss bouncing things off him, arguing about hockey."

Phil Esposito (right) talks to his brother Tony during Game 2 of the 1972 Summit Series at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on Sept. 4, 1972. Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame

And then, brightening: "Right now, I'd be all over him about the way his Blackhawks are going. But I know this: he'd not be interested in taking part in anything to do with celebrating the Summit Series anniversary. He didn't enjoy the experience.

"I spoke with him over a couple of years, before he got sick, about the upcoming anniversary and he told me, 'Don't include me in anything.' I told him, 'Tony, we have to do something for some of the guys,' and he said, 'You know what, Phil? I've done what I have to do for some of the guys.' I didn't bug him about it after that.

"I don't think that Tony ever forgave me for forcing him to play. I mean, if I play, he has no choice. But I'll say this: if it wasn't for Tony, we'd be talking about Canada having lost the series."

Tony Esposito (left) celebrates his 1969-70 Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie with his brother, Phil; and Esposito's 1972 Summit Series portrait. UPI/Hockey Hall of Fame; Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame

Ten years ago, 14 members of Team Canada were in Russia to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the series with members of the Russian team. Phil Esposito was part of the group; Tony was not. There was no bitterness; the goalie had played in 1972 and simply moved on with his life.

"I was invited this time, and I've been invited before," Esposito said from his summer home in Wisconsin. "Phil went over a little while ago and he's there now. They wanted me to go and do a little stuff, go around the rinks, but I'm not doing that. I'm not doing Russia. I'm not going over there any time soon. Or ever."

The man known as Tony O would be true to his word. The goalie left Moscow with his teammates on Sept. 29, 1972, and he never returned.

Tretiak would play all 480 minutes of the series for the Russians. Esposito and Dryden would evenly split the workload for Canada, coach Harry Sinden selecting his goalies as much by hunch as strategy. Dryden played Games 1 and 4 in Canada, both losses, and Games 6 and 8 in Moscow, both wins; Esposito played Games 2 and 3 in Canada, a win and a tie, and Games 5 and 7 in Moscow, a loss and a win.

None of it, Esposito remembered, was much fun.

Team Canada goalie Tony Esposito prepares for a shot by Russia's Vladimir Petrov, defenseman Bill White reaching in with an attempted block. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

The brothers were happily running a summer hockey school in their hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, when a call came from NHL Players' Association head Alan Eagleson, co-organizer of the Summit Series.

"At the time, Phil and I thought, 'We don't want to go to another hockey tournament,' " Tony Esposito recalled in 2012. "That's all we thought it would be, that it wouldn't be anything big. But after talking with them I guess it was rather important, so we decided to let the other guys run our school and we left for the (August) training camp in Toronto."

Phil Esposito would be one of four players to wear an "A" on his sweater (Frank Mahovlich, Stan Mikita and Jean Ratelle were the others), Sinden and assistant coach John Ferguson choosing not to name a captain. As the series evolved, however, it became clear to everyone that Phil was indeed the captain, leader by deed on the ice and by word off of it.
The brothers were obvious roster selections.

Goalie Tony Esposito pregame with Team Canada for a game in Moscow. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

Phil had won the Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins in 1971-72, winning the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading point-scorer. Tony, who in 1969-70 was voted the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie, had won the 1971-72 Vezina Trophy, then awarded to the goalie(s) whose team had allowed the fewest regular-season goals in the regular season. He had led the League with a 1.77 average, .934 save percentage (then an unofficial category) and nine shutouts.

"Whatever they wanted to do in net was fine with me," Esposito said of splitting Summit Series duties with Dryden, who had just won the 1971-72 Calder with the Montreal Canadiens following wins of the 1970-71 Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the postseason.

"Kenny and I got along pretty well and we still do. He doesn't B.S. with me. You know how he seems cool to everybody? He wasn't that way with me.

"But it's funny," he added, laughing. "Kenny didn't want you to know anything. He talked in circles."

Tony Esposito has help from defensemen Brad Park (left) and Guy Lapointe (sitting) with forward Phil Esposito during a game in Moscow. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

Two Canadian scouts dispatched to Russia returned with reports claiming the Russians would be pushovers. That they scouted Tretiak in just one game, the day after the goalie's bachelor party when he played horribly, probably seeing two pucks, was of little use.

"So we didn't train like we should have," Esposito admitted of the Toronto training camp that ran from Aug. 13 to Sept. 1. "We had no real advance information on the Russians. The guys who scouted them said we wouldn't have any problems."

A 7-3 shellacking in Game 1 at the Montreal Forum on Sept. 2 suggested otherwise.
Canada's backup goalie that night took copious mental notes from the end of a stunned bench.

Team Canada's Summit Series goaltending was equally shared by Ken Dryden (left) and Tony Esposito. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

"What I noticed is that you couldn't play that old-fashioned goaltending style -- coming out of the crease to cut down angles," said Esposito, who furthered the butterfly style pioneered by Glenn Hall with the Detroit Red Wings, then Chicago. "From that series, especially, the concept of challenging the shooter was changed dramatically."

In his 1973 book "Face-Off At The Summit," Dryden candidly explained in fine detail how Esposito's butterfly style was better suited against the Russians than his own stand-up, angle-cutting, shooter-challenging method.

Esposito got Sinden's call for critical Game 2, a 4-1 win in Toronto on Sept. 4, and again for Game 3, a 4-4 tie in Winnipeg on Sept. 6. Dryden returned for Game 4 in Vancouver, a 5-3 loss on Sept. 8, sending the series to Moscow with the Russians leading 2-1-1.

Esposito was in net for Game 5 on Sept. 22, which would be a monumental meltdown. Up 4-1 nine minutes into the third period, the Russians scored four unanswered even-strength goals to win 5-4. Canada now faced two elimination games that, even if won, would serve up a winner-take-all Game 8.

Vladimir Vikulov (sitting) and Yevgeny Mishakov follow a puck in the corner with Team Canada goalie Tony Esposito. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

Dryden anchored a 3-2 win in Game 6 two nights later, then Esposito returned with his best performance of the series on Sept. 26, making 28 saves in a 4-3 Game 7 victory, shrugging off being drilled by a Boris Mikhailov shot to his unprotected neck with the score tied 2-2.
"There was extreme pressure on us," he said, the teams tied 2-2 heading into the third period of the penultimate game. "I'm proud that I put our team in a position to win that game."

Dryden held off the Russians in Canada's thrilling 6-5 series clincher on Sept. 28. The Canadians flew the following day to Prague, playing a 3-3 tie against the defending world-champion Czechoslovaks on Sept. 30, Dryden in goal, before chartering home. Esposito remembers best, as does his brother, the joy and even relief of getting back to North America, "to where everything was normal.

"Everything was grey or beige in Russia," he said. "There was no color -- all the cars were neutral. And it was a very repressive society. You weren't allowed to express yourself."

Team Canada defenseman Guy Lapointe moves in to clear a puck from in front of goalie Tony Esposito. Melchior DiGiacomo, Getty Images

If there were sights to be enjoyed on the buses and walks in historic Moscow, Esposito wore blinkers, focusing only on his play and almost counting the days until the flight out. He would say it took him a while to get his head straight at the start of the 1972-73 NHL season with the Blackhawks, winning just three times in his first 10 games.

A three-time Vezina winner, Esposito was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988, four years after Phil. His 15 shutouts in his rookie season with Chicago remains the League's modern-day record.

Esposito's death last year added to a sad, lengthy list of 1972 Summit Series roster players who are gone. He joins late Canadian forwards Rod Gilbert, Stan Mikita, Bill Goldsworthy, J.P. Parise and Richard Martin and defensemen Gary Bergman, Pat Stapleton, Bill White and Brian Glennie, as well as assistant coach John Ferguson.

Peter Mahovlich skates behind goalie Tony Esposito during a Team Canada intrasquad game at Maple Leaf Gardens before the start of the 1972 Summit Series. Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame

Twenty-one members of the large Russian contingent have died, too, including coach Vsevolod Bobrov, assistant coach Boris Kulagin, forwards Valeri Kharlamov, Vladimir Petrov and Vladimir Shadrin and defensemen Valeri Vasiliev, Alexander Gusev and Alexander Ragulin.

Ten years ago this month, Tony Esposito reflected thoughtfully on the Summit Series, turning back to September 1972 in detail for the final time in his life.

"Canadians were supreme in hockey, we knew that," he said. "And we were tested. Maybe we weren't so supreme, people thought, as the series went on. Everybody had doubts.

"But I think we won because of our upbringing. Because of the way we are as people, that we don't quit. When things get tougher, we fight harder. And I think that was the difference between the societies back then too."

Top photo: Tony Esposito stops Russia's Valeri Kharlamov during Game 2 of the 1972 Summit Series at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on Sept. 4, 1972. Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame