WITH THE 1972 CANADA-USSR SUMMIT SERIES marking its 50th anniversary this September, CBC announced last week the first episode of its new original four-part documentary series Summit 72 will premiere on CBC and CBC Gem on Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. local time (8:30 NT).
The remaining three episodes will air the following consecutive Wednesdays in the same time slot.
“The 1972 Canada-USSR Summit Series of Hockey changed the game forever, playing out dramas of national identity, pride, politics, and ideology while the world watched, enraptured, during the Cold War,” reads a press release.
The Summit 72 docuseries “tells the definitive story of the legendary 1972 eight-game ‘Super Series’ through a modern lens, and explores its legacy and lasting influence on Canadian national identity, framing it against the political and cultural climate of the times in both countries,” the release says.
Commissioned by CBC, Summit 72 was produced by Mercury Films in association with Impossible Objects with exclusive rights granted from Team Canada ’72.
Series producer Nicholas de Pencier (Mercury Films) shares writing and directing duties across all episodes with author, musician and director Dave Bidini, award-winning writer, producer and director Robert MacAskill, and award-winning journalist and news anchor for ABC News in Chicago, Ravi Baichwal.
Team Canada players who participated in exclusive interviews include Phil Esposito, Ken Dryden, Serge Savard and Paul Henderson. Key members of the Soviet team interviewed include Vladislav Tretiak and Boris Mikhailov.
“With never-before-seen 16mm archival footage restored in stunning 4K high resolution, Summit 72 brings an unforgettable moment in Canadian history to life on screen. Audiences get to relive — or experience for the first time — the adrenaline-fueled, edge-of-your-seat drama of one of the most monumental cultural proxy battles of the Cold War and trace its many reverberations in the zeitgeist right up to the present day,” the release says.
“The 72 Summit Series is in our DNA as a nation,” de Pencier said in the press release. “It was a life-altering experience for the players and their fans from both sides of the Iron Curtain, that changed the cultural, political, and sports landscapes in ways that no one could have foreseen at the time.
“It is a story that endures and needs to be told through the prism of the present day to understand what it meant, how it changed hockey, and how it changed Canada. I’m honoured to be working with some of the best creative minds in the country, and that the players have trusted us with their story,” de Pencier said.
In addition to de Pencier, MacAskill and Naveen Prasad (Impossible Objects) serve as producers. Prasad is also an executive producer along with Jennifer Baichwal (Mercury Films).
For CBC, Sally Catto is general manager of entertainment, factual and sports, Jennifer Dettman is executive director of unscripted content, Sandra Kleinfeld is senior director of documentary, and Mike Miner is executive in charge of production for CBC Docs.
Summit 72 was produced with the support of the Rogers Documentary Fund, the Rogers Cable Network Fund and the Canada Media Fund.
A French-language version of the series is also being produced, according to the press release.
For more, please click here.
Enhanced photo from the original 16mm film of Team Canada’s series-winning goal provided by CBC, courtesy of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
