Olympic Hockey Takes on a European Flavor

The North Americans are going home early.

Canada and the United States have been sent packing after the quarterfinals at the 2006 Winter Olympics. The United States lost 4-3 to Finland. Canada went down 2-0 to Russia.

The demise of the Americans is not so surprising. This was widely seen as a team between generations, with too many fair-to-middling players and no number-one goalie. At times they played better than that. But in the end, suspicions that this wasn't quite a world-class team proved accurate.

Canada's early exit is more surprising. These were, after all, most of the same players who never lost a game - never even trailed a game - at the 2004 World Cup. For whatever reason, the 2006 Olympic roster will go down as perhaps the most uninspired Canadian team since NHL players began playing internationally back in the 1970s. It's inability to score - just three goals in their last four games, all coming in one period against the Czechs - was astonishing and inexplicable.

In short international tournaments, there is always at least one team that never gets its act together, despite having loads of star players. The Russians are a perennial disappointment in recent years; the Swedes are always in search of new ways to screw up; the Americans faltered badly at the 1998 Olympics; Having won gold in '98, the Czechs never made it past the quarterfinals four years later.

Canada's turn was bound to come up eventually.