Paul Coffey was a wonderful offensive defenseman, putting up numbers from the blue line that rivalled the great Bobby Orr. He was known for great outlet passes, his manning the point on the power play, and, above all else, his skating ability on those end to end rushes he was so good at.
But one thing he was not known for was playing defense. Which is funny because the lasting image of the 1984 Canada Cup has always been a brilliant defensive play by Coffey, which he quickly turned into an offensive rush and set up the dramatic winning goal. It is the quintessential Paul Coffey play.
Ah the wonders of the ol' Canada Cup tournaments. I bet you didn't know that released two days before Christmas 2014 was the Canada Cup 1984: 5 Disc DVD Collection, featuring all games involving Team Canada. Two days before Christmas certainly doesn't allow for capitalizing on the Christmas rush, but who am I to criticize the marketing team?
The key thing is the Canada Cup '84 is now available for us to relive. Buy the DVD box set here: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com.
That's right - We can relieve the heroics of Wayne Gretzky, Paul Coffey, Raymond Bourque, Michel Goulet, Mike Bossy and all of Team Canada as the slowly come together through the round robin, win the classic semi-final against the Soviet Union and defeat the surprising Swedish team in the two game finale.
We also get a look at then-youngsters like Steve Yzerman, Dominik Hasek, Hakan Loob, Scott Stevens and Chris Chelios.
We also get semi-final game commentary by Team Canada assistant coach Tom Watt and Hockey Hall of Fame journalist Scott Morrison. In addition, we get many of the classic interviews and, yes, the always popular classic commercials from the original broadcast!
As a bonus, the final game of Canada Cup 1981 is also released on DVD. The Russians handed Canada their worst loss ever in that game, 8-1, likely ensuring we will never see a commercial release of that tournament. So the curious will want to see this game, too, and it is a great way to set up the drama of 1984.
Canada Cup DVDs already exist for 1976
and 1987
. Could 1991 be far away?
This also seems to be a great time to share this rare photo. It is of the jersey exchange after the tournament's final game, then tradition in such international friendlies. Here Montreal Canadiens teammates Mats Naslund and Larry Robinson exchange sweaters. Clearly Naslund's does not fit big Robinson very well.
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