2007-Super-Series IIHF World Junior Championship

#1
1987 Canada Cup, Final
September 15, 1987 – Hamilton, ON

- CANADA 6, RUSSIA 5 -

The first two games of the best-of-three final were already classics – the USSR took Game 1 6-5 in overtime on an Alexander Semak goal, and Canada equalized the series with a 6-5 overtime win of their own in Game 2, with the winner coming off the stick of Mario Lemieux – so Game 3 was almost guaranteed not to disappoint.

The Soviets, however, had other ideas, jumping out to a 3-0 lead after just eight minutes and bringing back memories of the Montreal Massacre – the 1981 Canada Cup final in which the Soviets dominated Canada 8-1.

But Canada clawed their way back, led by grinders Rick Tocchet, Brent Sutter and Dale Hawerchuk, and the tournament hosts took a 5-4 lead into the third period.

The USSR tied it up midway through the final frame, and it looked like overtime was on the agenda for the third consecutive game.

With less than two minutes to go, Canadian head coach Mike Keenan sent out the Gretzky-Lemieux-Hawerchuk line, along with defensemen Paul Coffey and Larry Murphy.

The Soviets won the face-off, but it was Lemieux who got to the puck first, chipping it past a Soviet defender to a streaking Gretzky, setting up a 3-on-1.

“Larry Murphy is a nice guy, and good player, but there's no way in a thousand years he was going to get that puck,” Gretzky said. “He knew it, too, so he made a brilliant move. He went straight to the net, I kept faking passes to him and (Igor) Kravchuk (the Soviet defender) had no choice but to go with him. That's when I threw it gently back to Mario, who was all alone.”

With Murphy charging to the net with his stick on the ice, Gretzky chose to drop the puck back to Lemieux, who rifled a wrist shot over the glove of Soviet goaltender Sergei Mylnikov, exciting the sold-out crowd at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton and sealing Canada’s third Canada Cup triumph in four tries.

Gretzky finished as the tournament’s top scorer with 21 points in nine games, earning MVP honours, while Lemieux led the competition with 11 goals.

The three-game series is still considered by many as the greatest exhibition of hockey ever played, and the Lemieux goal is held in as high regard by many as the Paul Henderson goal from the 1972 Summit Series.

“There is a generation of hockey fans who have grown up not having seen the 1972 Summit Series," said Canada Cup head Alan Eagleson. "But the 1987 tournament bridged that generation gap. It was that good. To a new generation it will be their 1972 series.”

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André Brin Director, Communications | Directeur, communications