Michael Enright on what the Summit Series meant to Canadians 50 years ago

This is part of a series of columns by Michael Enright, reflecting his more than 50 years as a journalist and CBC broadcaster covering Canadian and global news events.

Fifty years ago this month, the country pulsated with an urgency, an emotional upheaval, a national spasm of unity it hadn't felt since Expo 67.

Canada was playing hockey against the dark forces of the Soviet Union in a tournament of testing: the country that felt it held the patent on hockey as it should be played was going up against the obstreperous Russian bear.

The 1972 Summit Series was saturated in Cold War political rhetoric. It was East versus West, good versus evil, capitalism versus brute socialism. The term Iron Curtain was still in wide usage.

For a few moments, with each game in the eight-game series, ordinary life in Canada slowed down not quite to a crawl. As Canada moved to the final, telling game, it stopped altogether.

Children skipped school, employees stayed home or flocked to bars to watch the game on a big television. When Canada finally won on the legendary goal by Paul Henderson, the country lost its mind.

The three hockey stars of my childhood were Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay of the Detroit Red Wings, and Foster Hewitt of Hockey Night in Canada on radio and television.

Detroit was my family's favourite team, not the Toronto Maple Leafs. We ignored the Leafs largely because the team's owner, Conn Smythe, was regarded as notoriously anti-Catholic.

In teen-hood, I was a manifestly mediocre student at one of the most famous hockey high schools in the world, St. Michael's College School in Toronto. My homeroom teacher was Father David Bauer, who coached a number of Canadian national teams.

The school team, the Majors, was a seedbed for