The September He Remembers

Publisher’s note:

Due to a publisher’s error on the initial first edition print run, the following required corrections are as follows to print versions of the book. 

p. 155: September 16th not 17th

p. 11: J.P Parise's life dates are (1941-2015), not 2017

p. 14: The flight was from “Moscow to Prague” not “Prague to Moscow”

p. 21-22: “Gornik” instead of “Gwardia”

p.26: 70,000 DM, not $

p. 33: The correct spelling of the name is “Vsevolod”

p. 37: The dates should read as “Sweden on 16th and 17th”

p. 54: $20,000 in DM and $70,000 in DM

p. 65: The name should read “Dennis Hull”

p. 70: The dates should read September 16th and 17th 

p. 74: Image 12, date should be centered under Sterner 

p. 76: Image 13, Sterner (September 17th, 1972),Sterner misspelled under picture 

p. 88: “In May 1970, Trudeau…”

p. 88: He came to Ottawa in October 1971 

p. 141: The 5:4 Esposito goal, not 5:3

p. 155: Members of the 1970 and 1972 Stanley Cup winning Boston Bruins

p. 169: Josef, not Joseph, Kompalla

p. 191: Was giving them, not him, the finger

The Summit Series, a best-on-best hockey tournament played between the former-Soviet and Canadian men’s teams, occupies an outsized role in the Canadian sporting imagination. 

The September He Remembers: Josef Kompalla and the 1972 Summit Series reframes this famous Series in sport history through the story, experiences, and memories of Josef Kompalla, a German referee who played a key role in the events as one of the few esteemed officials selected to officiate during the Series. Given Kompalla’s important place in the history of the Summit Series, one of the most mythologized and celebrated tournaments in Canadian sport history, it should come as a surprise that his perspective on the events has not been previously documented. In this book, Bolz seeks to rectify this longstanding oversight through intrepid archival creation and analysis, as well as previously-untold stories from Kompalla himself.

Although Kompalla’s role in the Summit Series has been largely omitted or obfuscated for the past half century, The September He Remembers is finally the first step in correcting a major historical oversight and adding a new chapter in the Summit Series’ growing legacy.

Note: print versions are available for purchase at cost.