Super Series '76 was the first of the "Super Series" ice hockey tournaments, which saw club teams from Soviet Championship League touring North America to play against teams from the National Hockey League (NHL). The tournament was played in late December 1975 through the early part of January 1976, in the middle of the regular schedules of the NHL and Soviet league.
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The tournament was groundbreaking in that Soviet club teams had never played against NHL teams. The 1976 tournament was a veritable "clash of hockey titans", as it involved the best teams of each league including the reigning Soviet champions, HC CSKA Moscow, also called "The Red Army Club" in English, and Krylya Sovetov Moscow (also known as "Soviet Wings"). As well the NHL teams involved included the defending Stanley Cup champions of 1975, the Philadelphia Flyers and soon-to-be 1976 champion Montreal Canadiens
In the early games Red Army defeated the New York Rangers, while Soviet Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins. On New Year's Eve 1975, the Red Army was scheduled to play the Montreal Canadiens. The Red Army was the most dominant team in the Soviet League and the Canadiens were usually the best team in the NHL — the Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup later that year. The game was billed in North America as the de facto world professional championships. The game resulted in a 3-3 tie in a contest that is widely regarded as one of the greatest games ever to have taken place, being notable for the performance of the Red Army's Vladislav Tretiak in net despite his team being outshot 38-13.[1]
The series continued with Buffalo Sabres defeating the Soviet Wings, their only defeat in the series and the Wings coming back to beat the Chicago Black Hawks. The Red Army defeated Boston Bruins and the Soviet Wings beat the Islanders. In their final game, Red Army suffered a 4-1 loss at the hands of the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Philadelphia Flyers. That game was notable as the Flyers' Ed Van Impe delivered a hard hit on the CSKA's top player, Valeri Kharlamov, knocking the latter prone on the ice for a minute, and the Soviet coach pulled his team from the ice in protest of the officials' ruling that the hit was a legal play.
At the end of the tour, the Red Army's final tally was 2-1-1 tie and the Soviet Wings finished 3-1. Red Fisher had this comment in the Montreal Star following the close of the series:
They were grand and talented visitors, but the Soviets do not represent a hockey season in this area - and should not. The Soviets won the series 5-2-1, but all of the dialogue in the wake of Philadelphia's awesome wipeout of the Red Army team focused on the Soviets' failure to beat the National Hockey League's best 3 teams. Their best was unable to beat our best, which makes the over-all results considerably less than important.
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