In Canada, it is on par with the legendary footage of Neil Armstrong taking ‘one giant step for mankind’ on the moon, or that other classic piece of stock footage: Guy getting hit in the gut with a cannon ball.

The 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Red Army team has grown to near mythical status since it was played 30 years ago. The footage from those games is easily the best-known reel of stock footage this country owns.

It is so important, in fact, that the original game tapes are not controlled by any of the likely archival sources – the CBC or the Canadian Hockey Association.

Rather, a small marketing company that has made Team Canada 72 its main source of business keeps close rein on this priceless footage.

Horst Streiter, partner at Ficel Marketing of Missisauga, ON, says his firm has very strict rules as to how the 72 footage is used in order to protect the reputation of the team and its members.

‘Obviously we don’t want to associate ourselves with any questionable organizations. So we only associate ourselves with organizations that have credibility behind them and where it really makes sense to utilize it in the fashion it is utilized,’ he says.

Ficel began governing the usage in 1997 when it became the lead marketing arm of Team 72 Representation, a corporate entity made up of all 36 members of the team. One of Ficel’s first orders of business was to approach the CHA and ask for all the commercial exploitation rights on the Summit Series and all the footage around it.

Since then, the firm has been involved in extensive lobbying to have the team inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and receive the Order of Canada. It was also instrumental in having the team recognized as Canada’s Team of the Century.

While footage use is of primary importance to Ficel, it is equally important to the brands that try to leverage the aura around those heady days of late September 1972.

In the last year, the footage has made its way onto spots for General Motor’s Chevy Impala and Molson Canadian.

Glen Hunt, creative director at Toronto-based Bensimon*Byrne D’Arcy, which has licensed footage for Molson Canadian spots, says its use doesn’t always make sense from a brand perspective.

‘It all depends on the capacity it is being used in,’ he says. ‘It makes sense when you’re Molson Canadian – when you have the ties to hockey, the heritage of Canada, the pride of Canada and your name is Canadian. If you’re a car dealer it doesn’t make as much sense, necessarily.’

Hunt says the footage elicits a level of pride in being Canadian that few other moments in our history have managed to do. While Canadian contribution in war such as that made at Dieppe, France, or Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope are equally important to our sense of self, few moments were caught on camera with such immediacy as Paul Henderson scoring the series winner.

‘It’s parallel to Americans landing on the moon. This really was our moment,’ Hunt says.

‘It was Canada taking on Russia. The United States couldn’t even take on Russia. This was during the Cold War. This is a sport that for all intents and purposes is our army and it was versus the Red Army squad.’