He stepped back to 26 goals and 48 assists in his second season, while playing 76 games. He won the Calder trophy when Lafleur and Dionne weren’t there, but then Dionne made a seamless transition to the big leagues in 71-72 with Detroit.
Dionne managed 28 goals and 49 assists in 78 games. He had bested the year older Perreault by the slightest of margins, again. Lafleur in the high-pressured Montreal market had flopped in his debut as a rookie in 1971-72 with only 29 goals and 35 assists in 73 games playing on the checking line. Yes, the standards have always been crazy high in Montreal.
Then came the 1972 summit series versus the Russians.
In September, before the season started, Perreault and Dionne were invited to the training camp and joined the roster to play in this unprecedented international hockey tournament. They were two out of 38 players chosen to represent their country against the Russians.
The entire tournament was designed to allow Canada and the NHL to reestablish their imagined dominance in world hockey. The Canadians hadn’t won gold at the Olympics since 1952.
The Edmonton Mercurys won the 1951 Canadian Senior Hockey Championship, the Allan Cup, and were the last club team to win the Olympic tournament for Canada. Canada continued to send club teams till 1964. The Trail Smoke Eaters became the last Canadian amateur team to win the world championship in 1961.
Canada felt their amateur teams were forced into an uneven competition with what they saw as basically professional all star teams from beyond the iron curtain. The Canadian club teams now were being embarrassed at international competitions. The IIHF voted to allow Canada to use nine non-NHL pros on its international hockey teams in 1969.
However, Avery Brundage of the IOC and Bunny Ahearne of the IIHF acted to have professionals again excluded from their tournaments.
Canada subsequently opted out of international hockey.
They had been chosen as the first non-European host of the World Hockey Championships and they declined to host the event in 1970.
They missed the Olympics in 1972 and 1976 and didn’t play in the World Championship again until 1977.
The 1972 series was designed to right a world of wrongs. Canada decided to play the Russians outside of any IIHF format flouting Ahearne and the European organization of international hockey. Those Russian players who had trounced Canadian senior champion club teams and the amateur national team would be made to pay for their effrontery.
The arrogance of the NHL was unbounded. They refused to allow stars from the rival WHA, like Bobby Hull and JC Tremblay play in the tournament. This was one of the reasons youngsters like Perreault, Martin, Guevrement, and Dionne were even invited.
The NHL’s hubris was repaid in spades as they lost the first game at home in Montreal 7-3. The Russians were not only too professional for Canadian amateur teams, they were too professional for the NHLers.
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