Harper, Putin WON'T Face Off in Summit Series Anniversary

We're not normally pro-fighting, but we'd sell our left kidneys to see the two drop the gloves.

Update: Well, thanks to some party poopers in the PMO, it looks like rumours of the Harper/Putin showdown on ice are false. Continue on below if you want to read the armchair-GM dreams, now crushed, of a lowly news editor.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Russian Prime Minister (and likely soon to be president) Vladimir Putin will face off this fall in two hockey games to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Summit Series. The two games will reportedly take place in Moscow and Toronto in September, four decades after the Canadian national team topped the Soviets in the best-of-eight series. Neither Harper nor Putin are great skaters. Harper only played hockey for three years as a youth, and has joked that when the Conservatives ice a hockey team for charity events, he's much more comfortable holding a clipboard and coaching from the bench. Likewise, Putin only began skating last year (as you can see in the video above), so we shouldn't expect this exhibition series to be much better than a Timbits game, albeit one in which two of the world's most powerful men are silently praying that they don't have to try any cross-overs.

We can at least hope that Harper has the sense to stack his team with more capable players from the ranks of the government, as you just know that Putin will enlist goaltender Vladislav Tretiak (currently Russia's minister of sports) and defencemen Slava Fetisov (a member of the Duma's upper house) for his team. Ever since Liberal MP Ken Dryden was defeated in the May 2011 election, the number of former pro players in government has been reduced to just Frank Mahovlich, a Liberal senator, and former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers, a Tory senator. Perhaps come September we'll look back on this past Friday as a missed opportunity to strengthen the government's puck prowess, as he decided to waste seven Senate appointments on "doctors", "law enforcement officials", and "businesspeople" instead of, oh, Bobby Orr or Mark Messier. Reports also suggest that the two exhibition games will coincide with an eight-game series between the junior teams of Russia and Canada. Russia has knocked off Canada in the past two World Juniors tournaments, so this could very well shape up to be a true tribute to the Summit Series.