Ice Hockey · 1972 · Moscow, Soviet Union
Henderson Has Scored for Canada
With 34 seconds left in the decisive eighth game of a series that had become a Cold War proxy battle, Paul Henderson scores the goal that still defines Canadian hockey identity.
Canada 6-5 (series won 4-3-1)
Result
34 seconds remaining
Time of goal
Vladislav Tretiak
Goaltender beaten
The 1972 Summit Series pitted a Canadian roster of NHL professionals, playing internationally for the first time, against the Soviet Union's state-sponsored national team, a squad whose skill and conditioning stunned a Canadian public that had expected an easy sweep. The series was tied heading into the eighth and deciding game in Moscow.
Trailing 5-5 late in the third period, Henderson jumped onto the ice for a shift he had not been scheduled for, collected a rebound off his own missed shot, and poked it past Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak with 34 seconds left on the clock. Broadcaster Foster Hewitt's call, 'Henderson has scored for Canada', became one of the most quoted lines in the country's sports history.
Canada won the series 4-3-1, and the goal is still marked in Canada as a defining moment of national identity, a hockey victory that arrived loaded with Cold War significance and is commemorated annually on its anniversary. Henderson, a solid but unspectacular NHL scorer before and after, became permanently linked to the single goal that decided the series.
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