1987 Canada Cup

[ArgoRavi]

I was just watching some of a preliminary round Canada Cup game from 1987 between Canada and Czechoslovakia on ESPN Classics and noticed the thousands upon thousands of empty seats for the game at Calgary's Saddledome. This is for a Canadian team with the likes of Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Messier, Coffey and Fuhr. Such a game today would sell out without any problem at all but as recently as the 1980s, as popular as hockey has always been in Canada, it could still be a tough sell at times.

[Will]

I don't think crowds started picking up until they went to Copps Coliseum.

[ArgoRavi]

I don't think crowds started picking up until they went to Copps Coliseum.

And that was the final two games of the final series against the Soviets. I seem to recall that even the first game of that series in Montreal was far from a sellout.

[shayman]

My brother and I went to Game 2 of the final at Copps (after the Russians had won game 1.) I remember being stunned that I could still buy game 3 tickets at the box office moments before the Game 2 faceoff. (Of course we bought them, unsure if the game would be played - but we got to see Gretzky To Lemieux! Canada 6 Russia 5! what a game.)

I wish I still had the ticket. It was $40 or something really trivial. Hard to believe.

[Gill The Thrill]

Advertising was not as prevelant back then, no commercials, no sports radio stations. You only knew these games were going from reading the newspapers. Keep in mind this tournament started in the last week of August, not exactly traditional hockey season....It's sort of as silly as playing regular season CFL games in June and in the first week of July during the Canada Day long weekend imo.

The final 3 championship games took place on Sept 9, 11, and 13, or was it 11, 13, 15, I'm too lazy to check now..lol, so those round robin games were in August for sure, or maybe Labour Day, and you know what game is played on Labour Day in Calgary......The Eskimos and Stampeders game that's what...definitely more funner outdoors at McMahon on Labour Day than watching international hockey indoors during a round-robin game where the coaches are still figuring out who plays best with whom. I remember the lack of hype for that tournament and remember that the anticipation and excitement did not pick-up until the Semi-Final win vs Czechs in Montreal.

I went to a Quarter-Final World Cup of hockey game in 1996 between Canada and Germany and there were only 13,000 at what was then the Molson Centre in Montreal. I thought I would be watching the Czechs vs Canada when I bought the tickets, but the Czechs bottomed out and lost 8-1 to Germany on the final round-robin game in Europe...I know the crowd would not be full after that upset. Canada won 4-1 and hey it was still Montreal, a city where one cannot have a bad time, but it was not as if the game was most memorable.


And that was the final two games of the final series against the Soviets. I seem to recall that even the first game of that series in Montreal was far from a sellout.

Hard to believe, I think it was mostly packed, unless fans did not want to sit on the top rows or something Ravi. That was the 6-5 game...haha....they were all 6-5, but that was the Soviet win in OT when Alexander Semak picked the top corner above Grant Fuhr shoulder on the blocker side...it might have been a backhand even, good goal. It was a loud crowd, so it's not as if the place lacked atmosphere.

I have all 3 games on VHS, best hockey I've ever seen as far as I'm concerned even though it does now look slower than today's game. Remember the skates were heavier and the goalies did not look like the Michelan Man, so there was more net to shoot at..hence the 6-5 scores. Keep in mind goalies still wore leather pads which got a little heavier as the game wore on.

I always think of Dan Kelly doing the play-by-play when I think of that series...man do I miss hearing that guy's voice calling a hockey game.:)


My brother and I went to Game 2 of the final at Copps (after the Russians had won game 1.) I remember being stunned that I could still buy game 3 tickets at the box office moments before the Game 2 faceoff. (Of course we bought them, unsure if the game would be played - but we got to see Gretzky To Lemieux! Canada 6 Russia 5! what a game.)

I wish I still had the ticket. It was $40 or something really trivial. Hard to believe.

I bet you also did not have ticketmaster charging you outrageous service fees....$40 meant $40, not $45.50. Ticketmaster does make it more accessible to buy tickets from the comfort of your own home on the internet, rather than lining up and this makes selling out an event easier since box office, and box office hours are not as important as they used to be.

Kind of miss those lineup days, as more real fans would sacrifice their time and make a day of it. A buddy and I once skipped a day of high school to lineup for Leaf playoff tickets back in the 80's...good times. Now I would've have to go to the bank and take out a mortgage to afford an overpriced Leaf game, let alone a playoff game which has been unheard of since 2004.

[DanTheFan]

Remember the skates were heavier and the goalies did not look like the Michelan Man, so there was more net to shoot at..hence the 6-5 scores. Keep in mind goalies still wore leather pads which got a little heavier as the game wore on.


From what I remember (being too young to watch hockey in the 80s, I refer to my hockey cards and the internet :D), there were plenty of goalies at the time who were well under 6 feet. By today's standards, a 6 foot-tall goalie is considered undersized.

[1argoholic]

I wish I had my old equipment from when I started playing. My helmet was paper thin and we had the old white plasic mouth guards that went over your mouth. haha. I actually still have my Northland and Sherwood PMP wooden sticks that I got in my first year of college in 82.
When you watch highlights of the good old days of hockey it does look very slow. The guys didn't work out like they do today either. Bobby Hull was a big powerful man from working on the farm is summer. I have a photo in a scrap book of him with no shirt on holding a pitchfolk with a big bale of hay on the end. You have to be one strong SOB to pull that off. When I was a kid the Star had great colour photos that I'd cut out and put in my scrap book. I lived and breathed hockey back then.

[Gill The Thrill]

I wish I had my old equipment from when I started playing. My helmet was paper thin and we had the old white plasic mouth guards that went over your mouth. haha. I actually still have my Northland and Sherwood PMP wooden sticks that I got in my first year of college in 82.
When you watch highlights of the good old days of hockey it does look very slow. The guys didn't work out like they do today either. Bobby Hull was a big powerful man from working on the farm is summer. I have a photo in a scrap book of him with no shirt on holding a pitchfolk with a big bale of hay on the end. You have to be one strong SOB to pull that off. When I was a kid the Star had great colour photos that I'd cut out and put in my scrap book. I lived and breathed hockey back then. That's a famous picture...you could see how sculpted and muscular he was from working on the farm...muscles and veins were popping everywhere.

http://www.modsquadhockey.com/forums/index.php?/topic/55834-to-all-the-smaller-hombres-out-there/page__st__25

It's on that link...Hull was only 5'9, 5'10 at most like his son Brett, but he'd easily been a top player today...they discuss in that link that he would not have been big enough which is funny...short yes he was, small, not at all. Skating at his hardest he'd run over today's guys who think they're tough like Dion Phaneuf.

[1argoholic]

Yah that's is the photo. What a beast.

[Gill The Thrill]

I
When you watch highlights of the good old days of hockey it does look very slow. The guys didn't work out like they do today either. book.

Ken Dryden made a good point in saying that the difference in speed is exaggerated today because the shifts are shorter. He said something to the effect that top players in the 70's were every bit as fast as the guys today, but that they would pace themselves more because they'd stay out on their shifts longer. Phil Esposito said he would not be able to play today with these 45 second shifts...he said that when he played, "he was only getting warmed up after 45 seconds."

[shayman]

Ken Dryden made a good point in saying that the difference in speed is exaggerated today because the shifts are shorter.

I like another Ken Dryden quote too: "The golden age of hockey is whoever was playing when you were 12." :-)

[ArgoRavi]

I am watching some of the Finland/Canada preliminary round game that was played in Hamilton on August 30th of 1987 and I see lots of empty seats at that game too. It really did take a fair bit of time for Canadians to get enthused about this tournament. If they still had such a tournament today, I suspect that even the pre-tournament exhibition games would draw better, if not sell out completely, compared to that '87 tournament.

[Gill The Thrill]

I am watching some of the Finland/Canada preliminary round game that was played in Hamilton on August 30th of 1987 and I see lots of empty seats at that game too. It really did take a fair bit of time for Canadians to get enthused about this tournament. If they still had such a tournament today, I suspect that even the pre-tournament exhibition games would draw better, if not sell out completely, compared to that '87 tournament.

That's because TSN today would be promoting the crap out of it months beforehand, which of course there's nothing wrong in doing.

I remember taking a media course in 1991 taught by an American and we discussed marketing and advertising in Canada and the US. We even discussed how pro sports was marketed and talked about how the CFL and NFL were hyped and how college sports were marketed in both countries. In his exact words, he told me that, "Canada does not know the meaning of the word hype," in comparison to marketing in the USA. I really could not disagree with him at all.

[ArgoRavi]

That's because TSN today would be promoting the crap out of it months beforehand, which of course there's nothing wrong in doing.

I remember taking a media course in 1991 taught by an American and we discussed marketing and advertising in Canada and the US. We even discussed how pro sports was marketed and talked about how the CFL and NFL were hyped and how college sports were marketed in both countries. In his exact words, he told me that, "Canada does not know the meaning of the word hype," in comparison to marketing in the USA. I really could not disagree with him at all.

I have always felt that the best thing that happened to the NHL in this country was the creation of CTV Sportsnet (as it was first known as) and the rise of sports talk radio which both happened in the mid to late 1990s. While those outlets had minimal impact on other sports, including the CFL, they had an enormous impact on the NHL given that is mostly what they have covered. It wasn't unusual to significant numbers of empty seats at NHL games in Canadian cities prior to about 1997. Over the last decade, we don't see many empty seats with about the only ones that we do see being in Ottawa.

[ticatfan]

I was there...151