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 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 employed their trademark thuggery to offset the superior skills of the Red Army team, similar to the strategy the Flyers used to neutralize the more skilled Boston Bruins teams of the era, with the attitude that "the refs can't call every penalty we commit". 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 dirty hit that knocked out CSKA player Valeri Kharlamov. Kharlamov lay prone on the ice for a minute. The replay suggests Van Impe elbowed Kharlamov in the head. Van Impe later joked "He basically ran into my elbow with his head". 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 led to commentator Bob Cole saying, "They're going home!" repeatedly. In a 2016 interview with the CBC, Bob Cole said "he got caught up in the moment" and started saying those words even though he had no idea what was going on at ice level. After the game he thought he might be fired for making those comments on the air. Many believe 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. However, NHL President Campbell denied he had ever told Koloskov about the money. Campbell and Eagleson were the first to arrive to speak to the Soviets. Snider was never the main negotiator and never spoke directly to either Koloskov or Loktev. The Soviets prolonged the game stoppage by arguing to make their