Even though Russians now play in the NHL, and the Canada-USSR rivalry can never again capture the imagination of a nation as it did in the 1972 Summit Series (after all, there is no USSR anymore), hockey is the same today as it was more than a quarter century ago.

   Well, sure the equipment is a bit better today. Those big brown-leather pads that the goaltenders wore in the 1972 Summit Series have disappeared, and their replacements are brightly colored, lightweight and synthetic.

   And those dinky little plastic or wire goalie masks are gone too, superseded by artistic creations, custom made of acrylic and capable of withstanding anything this side of a small thermonuclear explosion.

   With today's booming shots, goalie masks had better be solid. OK, that's another change. In 1972, most NHL teams had a gunner, a guy with a big shot. In Chicago, it had been Bobby Hull, but he had just defected to the World Hockey Association. Today, there's no upstart league trying to lure away NHL stars, so that's a change too.

   But in either league of the '70s, each team had one or two hard shooters. Today, if you don't have a powerful shot, you simply won't make it to the NHL. Even the enforcers can fire shots of 90 mph.

   There are a lot fewer enforcers, though. In 1972, the Philadelphia Flyers were emerging as the Broad Street Bullies. Success breads imitators, so every team in the League was stocking up on tough guys -- not that there ever had been any shortage of them in hockey history.

   Canadians used to joke that the reason their streets were so safe was that all the criminals were playing hockey.

   Bench-clearing brawls were common in that era. But in the '80s, the League cracked down with rules aimed at reducing the importance of intimidation, and the rules worked. Nowadays, baseball has 10 to 20 bench-clearers per season whereas hockey has one every five years or so.

   If the 1972 Summit Series were played today, who knows how it might have ended. Certainly some of the circumstances would have changed. Bobby Clarke (he was Bobby then, he's Bob now) realized that the Soviets' best offensive player was Valeri Kharlamov. So in the seventh game, with the Soviets holding a 3-2-1 series lead, Clarke unloeaded a two-handed slash that broke Kharlamov's ankle. The Soviets never won another game.

   In today's NHL, Clarke would have been given a major penalty and a match penalty -- which carries a game misconduct. He would almost certainly have been suspended for a few games as well. But in 1972, Clarke played on. There were also a couple of occasions in that series when the benches emptied. That's a 10-game suspension for someone in today's hockey, but in 1972, it was just another opportunity for a TV commercial.

   And if you look at that old television footage, you can't help but think that it's being shown in slow motion. The game is so much faster today, largely because of the influence of that 1972 series and the subsequent international exchanges. The NHL was badly embarrased in the 1979 Challenge Cup, a three-game series won by the Soviets.

   The Europeans had a finesse game whereas North Americans had a power game. It took a long time for that message to sink in because at the elite level, Canada still had enough good, gritty players to win the 1976 Canada Cup. But in 1981, the Soviets won that tournament big-time and, suddenly, North American hockey changed.

   Out in Edmonton, Glen Sather put together an Oilers team that combined the best of the two hockey worlds. It had the flair and the artistry of the European game -- even though much of it was provided by Canadians like Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey -- and the grit of the Canadian game.

   When the Soviet club teams came over on their annual tours, they always out-skated the NHL teams. But when they played Edmonton, the Oilers matched them stride for stride.

   When the Oilers won their Stanly Cups, they set the tone for the League. By that time, the tube stakes that every player had worn in the Summit Series were long gone, consigned to thrift stores and antique stalls.

   Those two-piece wooden sticks of '72 were relics as well, superseded by high-tech creations of aluminum or graphite. Some were still made of wood, but by the time they got anywhere near a hockey player, they had been boiled, pressurized, treated, sandwiched and coated with plastic. Any resemblance to the substance most of us know as wood was purely coincidental.

   In fact, when you get right down to it, the only aspect of hockey that hasn't changed since 1972 is the puck. No wait a minute. Actually, the pucks have changed considerably. The ones they now use for most games are a new rubber composite that was introduced a few years ago. And in the games that are televised on the FOX network in the U.S., the puck has sensors embedded in it to allow colored streaks to show the puck's location on television screens.

   So let's revise that statement that hockey is the same as it was in 1972. In fact, let's throw it out altogether. What we are watching today is a different game completely. THe only thing that hasn't changed is the excitement.

Al Strachan is a hockey columnist for the Toronto Sun.