The 1972 Summit Series wasn’t the first time the Russian National team set foot on North American soil. Fifteen years prior, in 1957, the Soviets played exhibition games in Canada, were guests of Maple Leaf Gardens for a Leafs-Hawks game, and made it known that one of their priorities was to see the great Rocket Richard in action (I don’t know if this happened or not).
They played to capacity crowds, said the big difference between NHL and Russian hockey was “the unnecessary roughness in the NHL”, and a Canadian teenager, seeing the foreigners in a hotel lobby exclaimed, “They’re humans, just like we are!