 The series forced the NHL and the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to reassess all aspects of how the game was played in North America . Journalist Herb Pinder described the NHL to that point in this way : " The Europeans took our game and evolved it , while we stood still or even went backwards . The Russians had a style , and the Czechs ' style was different from that ... There was this hockey world evolving through international competition , and we 're back here , stuck , just playing ourselves . It was a business monopoly . And like any monopoly , the NHL got stagnant . " Throughout the 1970s and 1980s , Canadian hockey encouraged the adoption of new coaching and training methods used in Europe , and emphasized conditioning and skills development . 
