Mark Mulvoy’s induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame last week provided the longtime John’s Island resident with a well-deserved opportunity to look back nostalgically on a sports-journalism journey that took him from campus correspondent to the pinnacle of his profession.
Recognized for his contributions to hockey’s rise in America from a regional game embraced almost exclusively in cold-weather regions in the 1960s to a major-league sport that today fills arenas from Florida to the Pacific Northwest, Mulvoy fondly recalled the glory days of a remarkable career.
They began in April 1965, when he graduated from Boston College and joined the staff at Sports Illustrated, where he went on to cover baseball, pro football and hockey before eventually taking over as the once-vaunted magazine’s editor-in-chief and, later, publisher.
It was hockey, however, that took Mulvoy to the 1972 Summit Series, the first-ever showdown between Canada’s National Hockey League All-Stars and the Soviet Union team that dominated international amateur competition.
“The single-greatest event I ever covered,” Mulvoy, now 82 and retired for more than 25 years, said of the much-hyped, eight-game series won by the Canadians – four games to three with one tie – only after they swept the final three games in Moscow.
In fact, Mulvoy was the first American sports journalist invited to travel to the Soviet Union to write about the Soviets’ wildly successful training regimen and constant-motion style of play.
“I went to Russia three times during that period, which was fascinating,” Mulvoy said of the series, about which he would co-author a book, “Face-Off at the Summit,” with Team Canada goalie Ken Dryden.
Mulvoy’s work in the Soviet Union before and during the series was among the historical nuggets noted by Frank Seravalli, president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, which annually selects the recipients of the 2023 Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award – a writer’s invitation to enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada, where they are inducted as “Media Honourees.”
Seravalli also praised Mulvoy’s efforts as SI’s editor, saying the magazine’s expansive coverage of hockey and the NHL contributed mightily to the surge in the game’s popularity through the 1970s and ‘80s.
“He was hockey’s best friend” during a “critical period of growth for the sport,” Seravalli said.
