Tough & Triumphant

National characteristics not only show up in food, fashion and love, but also in sport--particularly in ice hockey. Canada's own game is like the land itself: rugged and bruising, a body-contact sport something like a combination of lacrosse (another Canadian game) and football. European hockey is so different as to be barely recognizable at times. While Canadians are trained to deliver solid body and board checks, the Europeans tend to play hockey like soccer, as a game of finesse with greater emphasis on pinpoint passing and Fancy Dan pattern plays.

Last week the two styles bumped head on. The result was a howl about sportsmanship--and the prospect of some changes in European hockey. In Prague for the world amateur championship, Canada's Belleville (Ont.) MacFarlands played so rough that they drew boos, as they had through much of a month-long pre-tournament tour. The MacFarlands needed police protection in Stockholm. In Finland they were pelted with snowballs, accused of being a "hooligan gang." In West Germany, Hamburg's Bild-Zeitung cried that the MacFarlands played "like a bunch of hoodlums . . . ramming down everything that came in their way." Countered MacFarland Assistant Manager Billy Reay: "We are just playing Canadian-style hockey, and European fans are not used to it."

Nor, apparently, were the European players. In one of the early games, Canada rattled a good Russian team with fierce body checks, breezed to a 3-1 victory. Playing in the same style, the U.S. flattened Sweden, 7-1. The victories were so convincing that the Europeans laid on the rough stuff themselves. Both the Czechs and the Swedes whacked their opponents to the ice in the best Canadian style. Even the Soviets, bruised by the MacFarlands, brawled in most uncomradely fashion with the Czechs before winning 4-3 in a game dotted with 15 penalties. But the Europeans will have to wait until next year. Canada beat down the opposition and went home with its third world championship in five years.

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