Cold War on Ice: Summit Series ’72, a 90-minute documentary with limited commercial interruption, will be a featured component in the launch of the NBC Sports Network as it debuts at 4:30 p.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 2, 2012, the same day the channel is re-branded from VERSUS. Cold War on Ice, produced by 51-time Emmy Award-winner Ross Greenburg, chronicles the historic 27-day Summit Series in September of 1972 between a team of NHL All-Stars from Canada and the Soviet National Team during the height of the Cold War. Team Canada was composed of the National Hockey League’s greatest stars, expected to easily defeat the Soviet team. In fact, on the eve of the ‘good will’ eight-game series, the Montreal Gazette published predictions from people inside the hockey world. The great majority of those polled shared the opinion of all-star goalie Jacques Plante and New York Times Hockey writer Gerald Eskenazi, who both claimed that the NHL squad “will slaughter them in 8 straight.” The event left its stamp on the national psyche of Canada and the entire National Hockey League. Hockey is not a sport in Canada; it is a matter of national pride, and what started as a friendly exhibition series turned into a microcosm of the Cold War. It was a dramatic confrontation that jumped the Iron Curtain to pit the east against the west, communism against capitalism, and good vs. evil.