1976 Flyers – Red Army game Flyers versus Red Army was a famous international ice hockey game played on January 11 , 1976 between the Philadelphia Flyers of the North America - based National Hockey League ( NHL ) , and HC CSKA Moscow ( Central Sports Army Club Moscow , Russian : ХК ЦСКА Москва , also known as the " Red Army Team " ) of the Soviet Union . The game was notable for an incident where , after a body check delivered by the Flyers ' Ed Van Impe , CSKA ' s top player , Valeri Kharlamov , was prone on the ice for a minute . When officials did not call a penalty , the Red Army coach , Konstantin Loktev , pulled his team off the ice in protest . NHL president Clarence Campbell told CSKA to return to the ice and finish the game , which was being broadcast to an international audience , or the Soviet Hockey Federation would not get paid the fee to which they were entitled . They eventually complied and lost that game 4 - 1 . Background . HC CSKA Moscow was one of the most dominant sports teams in history , winning the Soviet championship for 13 consecutive years between 1977 and 1989 . CSKA played many games against NHL clubs , including a North American tour in 1975 and 1976 . In total , the Red Army Club played 36 games against NHL teams from 1975 to 1991 and finished with a record of 26 wins , 8 losses , and 2 ties . The 1975 - 1976 series between various NHL teams and two touring Soviet teams , the powerhouse Red Army team and the somewhat lesser Soviet Wings squad , was another seminal moment in the tenuous relations between the NHL and the Soviet hockey program . The games , like the subsequent Canada Cup Tournaments which also began in 1976 , were not treated like exhibitions . Coming into the final match of their NHL series , the Red Army was still undefeated , having tied the Montreal Canadiens and beaten the other NHL teams they faced . Their final game was to be played in the Spectrum in Philadelphia against the two - time defending Stanley Cup champion Flyers . Before CSKA had arrived in Philadelphia , the Soviet players and hockey leaders were aware of the rough reputation of the " Broad Street Bullies . " A Pravda cartoon had portrayed the Flyers as Neanderthal thugs wielding clubs instead of sticks . Flyers captain Bobby Clarke ' s reputation was already cemented due partly to his actions in the 1972 Summit Series , where he delivered an infamous slash to the ankle of Valeri Kharlamov in Game Six . Flyers owner Ed Snider had several reasons to dislike the Soviets , in addition to [ Soviet - Western political tensions . Tough , often contentious , negotiations took place with Soviet officials before the series became a reality , in which Snider was actively involved . The Flyers ' owner found his patience tried by the difficult negotiating process with the Soviet officials . ( Snider was criticized by some as being hypocritical for allowing his hockey team to participate in a series that would pump money into Soviet coffers . ) Finally , there were strictly hockey - related reasons for Snider to dislike the Soviets so strongly . The diametrically opposite styles of hockey practiced by the Flyers and the Red Army Team created an instant source of conflict . Although the Flyers of the mid - 1970s were actually a very skilled team ( with the likes of future Hall of Famers Bobby Clarke , Bill Barber , and Bernie Parent plus all - star caliber talents such as Reggie Leach , Rick MacLeish , and defensive defenseman Jimmy Watson ) , they were best known for their aggressive brand of physical play . Snider ' s competitive fires were stoked by the realization that the chance to play the Soviets represented a chance to prove that his squad was the best team in the world and much more than a " goon squad . " The game . A goodwill get - together before the game was fraught with tension . Flyers announcer Gene Hart , who spoke Russian , taught Flyers owner Ed Snider to say a phrase in Russian wishing the best for both teams in the upcoming game . When the time came , there was no mingling whatsoever between the Soviet contingent and the Flyers staff and players . When Snider took to the podium , he spoke tersely and omitted the phrase Hart had taught him . Snider later said , “ when I looked at all those cold faces , I just couldn ' t do it . ” Clarke later said that he , too , “ really hated those bastards ” on the Soviet side and could not wait to take to the ice against them once again . The Flyers dictated the tempo of the game 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 on CSKA star Valeri Kharlamov , toppling the latter and causing him to lie prone on the ice for a minute . When officials 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 . 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 canceling their impending delay of game bench penalty . Eventually , they accepted the penalty and came back to the ice . The game delay tactic ended up backfiring on the Soviets as they returned to find the Flyers even more resolute than before . The Flyers scored quickly after play resumed and never looked back . After the game . Flyers head coach Fred Shero jokingly told low - scoring defenseman Joe Watson that the latter had set the Soviet hockey program back twenty - five years by scoring a shorthanded goal on the great Vladislav Tretiak . Amidst the Flyers ' pride in their convincing victory against an outstanding team , the seeds of contentiousness had grown even further . To this day , Tretiak , who views the tie game in the Montreal Forum as the highpoint of the series , says that the Flyers won by playing “ rude hockey . ” Coach Loktev called the Flyers “ a bunch of animals . ” The Flyers , meanwhile , left with the belief that the Soviet team had confirmed their feelings that Russian players were skilled but soft . Milt Dunnell of the Toronto Star had written this comment after the close of the series : " The Moscow Musketeers had to put a big fat zero on their aptitude test by pulling one the dumbest tricks in sports . They hauled their team off the ice . Loktev knew the conditions before he came . Nobody loves playing in Philadelphia . Once he accepted a game with the Flyers , under NHL rules , with an NHL referee , he was in the same boat as the Toronto Maple Leafs or Vancouver Canucks when they come to town . Loktev wanted his team to know what ' s it ' s like to play the Flyers in Philly under NHL conditions . Well . . . that ' s what it ' s like . " Legacy . A little more than a decade after the showdown in The Spectrum , the Soviet Union was crumbling politically . In order to raise funds , the Soviet hockey program started to negotiate to auction off selected prominent national team veterans to be dispersed to NHL teams . The Sniders refused to get the Flyers involved in seeking to acquire any Soviet players , citing the fact that the Soviet officials were demanding a large portion of the players NHL salaries be diverted into their hands rather than being given to the players . Later , of course , the Flyers began to scout and draft Soviet players on the same basis as they would players from any hockey country . However , the ramifications of the Flyers initial boycott were that the Flyers got a late start into tapping into the now - open Russian market , which spilled over into an early scouting disadvantage during the early period after the Soviet Union dissolved . Indeed , during the 1997 Stanley Cup finals , the Flyers were defeated by the Detroit Red Wings who had a sizable contingent of Russians . In a sign of just how much times had changed , during the 1990s , the Flyers employed a full - time scout , Evgeny Zimin as their main scouting representative for Russia and outlying former Soviet republics . Still , Snider ' s Flyers have never had a large Soviet presence .