1970 IIHF World Championship (WFAC)

The 1970 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships was the 37th edition of the Ice Hockey World Championships hosted by the (IIHF). Teams participated at three levels of competition. It took place between 6 and 22 February 1970 in the Canadian cities of  and. The two venues were the and the. The Soviet Union was the defending champion, having won the previous championship.

The Pool A tournament was the first true best-on-best world championship in hockey history as it allowed any player to represent their team regardless of amateur or professional status. It was an eight-team, round robin tournament with playoff round comprising of two semifinals, a bronze medal game and a final.

Canada was favoured by many sportswriters to win as they had brought what was argued to be the strongest team in the nation's history, with the Soviet Union as the contenders. Despite the strength of the Canadian team, the Soviet Union surprised the Canadian team and most of the hockey media with a victory in the preliminary round, 7–3. Despite the loss to the Soviets in the preliminary round, Canada defeated Sweden in overtime in a dramatic semifinal and met the Soviet Union in the final. The final was also won in dramatic fashion, with the Canadians overcoming a two-goal Soviet lead after two periods. The Canadians scored three in the third, the final one scored with 34 seconds left, by. Czechoslovakia won against Sweden 5–4 for the bronze medal. was named the most valuable player of the tournament, and was the leading scorer.

The series was played during the Cold War, and intense feelings of nationalism were aroused in both Canada and the Soviet Union, as well as on the ice. The games introduced several talented Soviet players to North America, such as Alexander Yakushev, Valeri Kharlamov and goaltender Vladislav Tretiak; the latter two are Hockey Hall of Fame inductees. Team Canada, the first NHL and professional all-star team formed for international play, was led by Phil Esposito, who led the Canadian team in scoring, as well as contributing in other roles. In Canada, the tournament is a source of national pride, and is seen by many as a landmark event in Canadian cultural history. In Canada, Paul Henderson's goal is considered to be one of the most famous in the history of the game.

Consequently, the success of the event paved the way for the use of professional players in the World Championship and later the Winter Olympics. This tournament was also the first one to make helmets mandatory for all European skaters (which was eventually changed in 1977).

Background
From the beginning of the IIHF World Championships in 1920, the tournament was open only for amateur players. Canada would send a senior amateur club team, usually the previous year's Allan Cup champion, to compete as the Canadian entry. These teams were often university players, or unpaid players playing ice hockey while being employed in some other profession full time. From the 1920s until the 1950s, Canadian amateur club teams won most of the World Championship and Olympic titles. As a career, Canadian players would play instead in the various professional hockey leagues, the best reaching the NHL. Their professional status made them ineligible to play in the World Championships or Olympics under the rules of the time.

Post-World War II, a goal of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union was world supremacy in sport, which included ice hockey, which differed from bandy, or "Russian hockey". Starting in the 1940s, the Soviet Union started a Soviet hockey league playing the Canadian game. The elite sports societies of the Soviet Union, such as Central Sports Club Army, Dynamo and Spartak, soon became the elite teams of the hockey league and supplied the players for the national team. Ostensibly amateurs, the players played hockey full-time, paid by the government. The players had other titular professions; for example Moscow Dynamo players became officers of the KGB; CSKA Moscow players became officers in the army. This preserved a player's amateur status for Olympic and World Championship eligibility and the players would have a career after their hockey playing days ended.

Entering international play in 1954, the Soviet national team under the tutelage of Anatoli Tarasov started to dominate the international competitions: they won nine championships between 1954 and 1969, including seven consecutive titles in the 1960s. Canada, in response, implemented a national team program in 1962, led by Father David Bauer. However, Canada's best players usually became professionals and the national team featured mostly university players. The Canadian team did not win any championships and was looked upon as a failure.

The first nation of hockey was becoming painfully aware that their amateur players were no longer able to compete successfully against the best European national teams. In the six world championships since 1964, Canada managed to win the bronze three times, remaining without medals at other tournaments. By 1969, the Government of Canada had formed Hockey Canada, an organization to co-ordinate Canadian international play with its amateur organizations and the NHL. The organization was convened in March 1969 in Toronto to select the best team possible to represent the country at the 1970 IIHF World Championship, which was scheduled to be held in Canada, for the first time.

Canada’s representatives at the IIHF Congress 15-30 March 1969 in Stockholm opened a discussion about the joint participation of amateurs and professionals. The proposal was approved with a majority of votes, with the Canadian, American, Soviet, Czechoslovak and British delegates voting in favor while the Swedish and Finnish delegates voting against. The congress also elected a new president to replace the American, who had been president since 1966. The front runner was the British candidate, who had been IIHF president from 1957–60 and 1963–66 as well as vice president between 1951–57, 1960–63 and 1966–69. However, Ahearne had become increasingly controversial due to his stubborn and difficult leadership style and since he enjoyed to run the federation as a personal travel office as the "boss", causing growing opposition against him. However, an opposition candidate presented himself in the person of Czechoslovak. Šubrt was elected president on the first ballot with 32 votes to 18.

The discussions continued at the IIHF summer congress 5 – 12 July 1969 in Crans-sur-Sierre, Switzerland. This assembly was attended by an unusually large Canadian delegation of 15 people, headed by the National Hockey League (NHL) president Clarence Campbell. A documentary about professional hockey was also shown with Canada’s prime minister Pierre Trudeau addressing the congress with a proposal to make the world championships open. Offers such as inviting the nations' six best players to come to North America and watch NHL games with everything paid for and inviting the national coaches to come North America to attend seminars with the NHL coaches were not only given to the European A pool but also to the nations in the B- and C pool. The vote on the “open championships” was divided. Some 27 delegates voted in favour and 23 against the proposal. As the resolution was under discussion, the vote was indecisive with IIHF President Šubrt convincing enough delegated to vote in its favour.

During the summer and autumn of 1969 IIHF president Miroslav Šubrt negotiated tenaciously with NHL president Campbell and Hockey Canada president Earl Dawson. On 15 September 1969 the IIHF and the NHL announced a compromise agreement in which the world championships would allow professionals to participate alongside amateurs for a one-year trial period, after which a review would take place and a more comprehensive decision in the matter moving forward was to be made. A break in the NHL schedule would be introduced in February to accomodate the Pool A tournament, with an additional international break in November. The Canadians also agreed to play the games under international rules as well as agreed to IIHF amateur referees. The refereeing would use the international two referee system. A playoff format was also introduced at the A pool.

The IIHF eligibility rule change was met positively by the Canadians and the Americans, as well as the Soviets and the Czechoslovaks. As the Soviets were looking for a new challenge in ice hockey and ready to play against Canadian professionals, they agreed to the terms. As a result, the tournament would be the first true best-on-best world championship in hockey history as it allowed any player to represent their team regardless of amateur or professional status.

However, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) heard about the IIHF's decision during the autumn of 1969 it was met with alarm and anger by IOC's president, Avery Brundage. He was strongly opposed to amateurs and professionals competing together. He strongly voiced his criticism of the IIHF decision to professionalise the sport and made it clear to the IIHF that any violation of the amateur code would jeopardize ice hockey's status as an Olympic sport. Brundage warned that the IOC would take the same stand in the case of ice hockey as they did with football, which was that none of the participants who had taken part in the FIFA World Cup, which was open to professionals, were eligible to the Olympic Games.

Fearing both a rift in the relationship with the IOC and that an absence of Canada would be a massive blow to international hockey, IIHF president Miroslav Šubrt worked to reconcile the opposing sides. At an extraordinary IIHF summit in Geneva, Switzerland, the IIHF announced a compromise agreement on 3 January 1970. While the world championships would remain open for professionals for the one-year trial period, the IIHF guaranteed the Olympic ice hockey tournament would remain a strictly amateur tournament.

Legacy
The tournament finale was the most watched television event in Canadian history at the time. 10,700,000 people were estimated to have watched the game, representing nearly half of all Canadians in 1972. The team that represented Canada is still considered one of the greatest national teams to ever represent the nation in a hockey tournament. For many players, winning the world championship was the highlight of their careers. Bobby Orr rated winning this tournament ahead of winning the Stanley Cup.

The tournament established a new era in international hockey. It was the first true best-on-best world championship in the sport's history. The open world championship conclusively proved that the gap between the best Canadian NHL players and the top national teams of Europe (USSR, Czechoslovakia, Sweden) was much narrower than most observers on both sides of the Atlantic had anticipated. For North American audiences, the tournament established that Czechoslovakia and Sweden could compete with Canada and the Soviet Union, while the Finns and Americans proved they were capable of playing with the sport's elite teams. It also led to regular series of games between Soviet and NHL clubs, known as the Super Series. By the 1980s, an increasing number of players were former members of the Swedish or Czechoslovak national teams. The top Soviet players were finally allowed to sign contracts with NHL clubs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In North America, the tournament exposed the need for better preparation and off-season training. Philadelphia Flyers coach Fred Shero became an avid student of the Soviet style and was one of the first to bring the Soviet training techniques to the NHL as the Flyers won two Stanley Cup championships in 1974 and 1975. Several NHL players lamented that the NHL training methods of the late 1960s and early 1970s were vastly inferior to those of the Soviets. On the other hand, Swedish sports journalists were extremely impressed by the toughness and "never say die" fighting spirit of the Canadians, who lost only one game out of nine. According to Soviet player Boris Mikhailov, who later became a coach, "it was a meeting between two schools of hockey and we have since continued this great exchange and we have learned from each other, taking the best of both styles." In 1970 the tournament was a “clash of civilizations”, and while the introduction of professionals had resulted in the first gold medal for Canada since 1961, several years of adjustments were needed before Canadian hockey officials realized that “old time hockey” was not paying dividends on the international scene.

As time passed, the significance of the series grew in the public consciousness, and the term "Summit Series" became its unofficial accepted name. In Canada, the tournament is a source of national pride, and is seen by many as a landmark event in Canadian cultural history. In Canada, Paul Henderson's goal is considered to be one of the most famous in the history of the game. The series is also seen by many Canadians as an important win in the Cold War.

The success of the tournament would lead to the IIHF making the ice hockey world championship tournament open to both pros and amateurs. As IOC President Avery Brundage of the IOC warned that the future of ice hockey's Olympic status was in jepoardy, the IIHF continued its stand against Brundage. At the 54th IIHF Congress in Stockholm, Sweden on 6–21 February 1970, IIHF President Šubrt announced that he endorsed making the tournament permanently open to professionals. At an IOC meeting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on 10 May 1970, Brundage urged the international sports federations to withdraw ice hockey, along with Alpine skiing, soccer and basketball, from the Olympic Games. However, Brundage's threats fell flat when the IOC vice president Lord Killanin declared that the IIHF's compromise agreement sufficiently secured the amateur nature of the sport. As a result, the majority of the IOC decided to keep ice hockey and Alpine skiing on the program for the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.

At its summer congress between 4–11 July 1969 in Crans-sur-Sierre, Switzerland the IIHF decided to turn the world championships to an open tournament permanently from 1971 onwards. 33 delegates voted in favour and 17 against. Further changes to the world championships were also announced. The Olympic tournament would cease to count as the World and European titles, and the IIHF would not arrange world championships in Olympic years. The IIHF also guaranteed the Olympic ice hockey tournament would remain a strictly amateur tournament (which lasted until 1988).

Qualified teams
The seven teams of the 1969 was automatically qualified for the tournament, along with the 1969 Pool B winner West Germany were also qualified for the 1970 Pool A tournament.

Preliminary round
All times are local (UTC−05:00 in Montreal and UTC−06:00 in Winnipeg).

Final ranking
The official IIHF final ranking of the tournament:

Directorate awards
Best players selected by the IIHF directorate:

All-Star team
The tournament All-Star team voted by the media: