Philadelphia Flyers vs Red Army (11 January 1976)

From the Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Flyers dictated the game’s tempo and were able to take the body on the Soviet players and avoid getting caught in the Soviet up-tempo transition game. In the first period, with the game still scoreless, Flyers defenseman Ed Van Impe, who had just finished serving a penalty for hooking, left the box and immediately placed a hard hit that knocked out CSKA star Valeri Kharlamov. Kharlamov lay prone on the ice for a minute. When Lloyd Gilmour, the referee, refused to call a penalty, maintaining that Van Impe’s check was clean, Red Army coach Loktev protested by pulling the team from the ice. This memorably led to commentator Bob Cole saying, “They’re going home!“ repeatedly. Snider got into a shouting match with the president of the Soviet Hockey Federation, threatening to not pay for the series if they did not return to the ice. The Soviets prolonged the game stoppage by arguing to make their return to the ice conditional on the referee canc