At first, East German hockey star Dieter Frenzel didn’t really understand the opportunity stolen by the communist authorities.

It was December 1989 and East Germany, the country for whom Frenzel had played 296 games as captain of its national hockey team, was disintegrating in the aftermath of the opening of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9. In the midst of the chaos, an offer for Frenzel’s services had come from a West German team and East German authorities had accepted.

Frenzel would make history by becoming the German Democratic Republic’s first team sport athlete allowed to play in the West. But when he appeared at the ministry of the interior to sign his contract, a bureaucrat let slip that there had been a previous offer for Frenzel’s services in 1983. It was from the Edmonton Oilers, just as they were about to embark on their historic run of success with four Stanley Cups in five seasons.

“I was surprised,” Frenzel, 59, recalls with a shake of the head during a break from the high-end women’s shoe store he owns with his wife in Dresden, Germany.

“But I didn’t really know anything about the NHL then. We couldn’t see those games in Germany at that time, so I had no idea of the importance hockey had, especially in Canada. Of course to have played for a team like the Oilers would have been the greatest experience any hockey player could wish for, but I only realized this after I went to my first NHL game years after the fall of the Wall.”

Those who saw the defenceman play in his prime in the 1980s came away impressed. Jim Corsi, former NHL netminder and now goaltending coach of the St. Louis Blues, played against Frenzel numerous times in world hockey championships while with the Italian national team. His first encounter with the German was a memorable one.

“They were on a power play and he one-timed a slapshot off the crossbar from the top of the circle,” said Corsi, who played for the Oilers in 1979-80 season. “I had no idea where that puck was and when I found it, it was flying into the penalty box at the red line!”

Alan McDougall, an associate professor of history at the University of Guelph who has written extensively on East German sports, explains that to understand why authorities rebuffed the offer for Frenzel one needs to remember the role athletes played in the Cold War conflict between East and West.

“For GDR officials, elite athletes were ‘diplomats in tracksuits.’ Their country did not have many successful exports, but international sport, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, was definitely one of them. Because of this, any move to the West would have been viewed as striking a blow to the prestige of socialism and the unloved East German state.”

Frenzel said hockey did indeed serve as a battleground in the Cold War, particularly games between GDR and West Germany.

“When the schedule came out for a world championship and we were scheduled to play (the West Germans), that’s when the quote-unquote ideological warfare started. The (Communist) party functionaries would come and try to influence us politically. But for us players, it was hard to believe what these people were telling us (about the West), because they had never been outside of the country and of course we had. You would sit there and ask yourself, ‘What is this guy talking about?’ ”

McDougall said GDR leaders took a particularly hard line when it came to allowing athletes to move West.

“Even among communist countries, the GDR was singular in its rigidity on this point. During the 1980s, many of its neighbours — such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and even the Soviet Union itself — relaxed their policies, allowing older sports stars to go make a living in the West. The GDR never followed suit. Until 1989, all sporting cases of ‘flight from the Republic’ were regarded as treason.”

Frenzel likely caught the eye of Oiler scouts during the 1983 world championship, where he led the GDR to a sixth-place finish. For players who normally competed in a two-team domestic league, these tournaments were significant.

“It was great to play against the best in the world. I especially loved the games against Canada,” he recalls, “because that was honest hockey. They liked to dish it out, and if you did the same they’d take it and just keep playing. It was a style of play that spoke to me, and that was probably the reason I got the (Oilers’) offer.”

Indeed, word of the offer doesn’t surprise Corsi.

“I can see why they were interested in him,” Corsi said. “Frenzel may have been a total unknown, but he was as strong and solid as any top NHL defenceman. He had that Denis Potvin-type of shot, was a great puck mover and he skated like the wind. There’s no question in my mind that he’d have fit in with the ’83 Oilers. It’s a long grinding season and a tough league, but he’d have done it.”

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In recent years, then-Oilers GM Glen Sather confirmed the team’s approach to authorities for Frenzel. Apparently a $1-million transfer fee and three-year, $3-million contract were on the table. Given how that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity went begging, one might expect Frenzel to be bitter. Instead, he offers this wry take on his fate: “Had things worked out in Canada, I wouldn’t have the chance to sell shoes today.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct Alan McDougall’s position at the University of Guelph. He is an associate professor of history.

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