The Corel Centre's crowds rivaled the attendance at the Athens games.

It's funny to see how strongly hockey fans are urging the owners & players to find middle ground and not deprive them of top-flight hockey and yet when the absolute best-of-the-best players arrived in Ottawa for three exhibition games hardly anyone showed up to watch. Minnesota had equal problems when they failed to sell-out the US-Finland semi-final game. For instance in Ottawa only about 12,500 showed up for a Canada-Slovakia game (Montreal drew over 21,000) and just over 4,000 showed up for an exhibition game between Slovakia and Russia. To give you an idea of how embarrassing the attendance was for the Ottawa Senators organization who own the Corel Centre, they refused to announce the attendance and exact totals were unavailable for print the next day. Now I get that people are not into a game that doesn't involve Canada but when you think about where else you would get a chance to see the best of the world compete it really boggles the mind why people wouldn't pay to see players like: Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Kovalev, Frolov, Ovechkin, Hossa, Gaborik, Demitra, Nagy. Maybe it was poor marketing? I guarantee if you would have dubbed this game the "Young Stars Game" instead, the attendance would have doubled or tripled. Of course on the negative side, upon hearing "Young Stars" you'd attract the likes of R. Kelly…for the wrong reasons. Toronto on the other hand drew 18,198 for the same two teams. Granted it was a tourney game but still, the players were the same. A difference of over 14,000 should emphatically put a stamp on why Toronto and Montreal received tourney games over Ottawa. If the city really wanted to make a case for hosting "real games" they would have shown up and made a point by supporting the "test" games they were given. The strangest thing out of all of this is that Senators president Roy Mlakar was pleased with the turnout and thought the 12,500 and 4,000 attendance were "solid crowds" (talk about lowered expectations) and even commented, "That's why this is hockey country." If this is how poorly hockey is being received in "hockey country" the game as we know it is in worse shape than any of us can imagine.

"I don't give a s*** what the fans think." - Quote of the tournament hands down came from Brett "Healthy Scratch" Hull who alienated himself from his teammates with his laissez-faire attitude. Tough job already for the Phoenix Coyotes PR staff to try and spin that "golden" comment into a positive.

Kovalev's goal against the Americans was downright sick and in need of some serious Nyquil. Hard as it is to imagine Kovalev wasn't even on the Russian's most talented line, which was comprised of Datsyuk-Kovalchuk-Afinogenov. There was simply not enough puck to go around when these guys were on the ice This line should have been dubbed the And 1 line and we might as well started re-dubbing them Hot Sauce, ½ man ½ amazing and Sick wit it.

Is it possible to have subtitles for any future Jay Bouwmeester interview? I'm not sure what's harder to figure out, Bouwmeester's low and undecipherable mumbling or why you hear songs from 13-year olds about despair and heartbreak. Here's a sampling of 13-yr old JoJo's Leave (Get Out):

I wanted you right here with me but I have no choice you've gotta leave
Because my heart is breakin'
With every word I'm sayin'
I gave up everything I had
On something that just wouldn't last
But I refuse to cry

Unless she's singing about her baby's daddy, what possible reason does a 13-yr old have for emitting such strong emotions and melodramatic speech? This isn't Dawson's Creek.

Before Canada's semi-final game Joe Sakic was asked about their opponent, "Czechoslovakia, that's a very dangerous hockey team". Czechoslovakia? They would be a dangerous team…if we were still in 1991. Quick geography update: the one country split into the two countries we know now as Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The geography error does bring up an interesting thought; what if the two teams were once again reunited? Just imagine the team they could roll out: Jagr, Elias, Hossa, Demitra, Gaborik, Nagy, Palffy, Hejduk, Chara, Zidlicky, etc…The Czech's have already proven they have a strong program that grew leaps and bounds in the late 90's, highlighted by the gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Other major accomplishments included: back-to-back World Junior Championships (1999, 2000), 3 straight World Championships from 1999-2001. Slovakia on the other hand is a fledgling hockey program starting to make significant progress as illustrated by their recent strong showings at the past few World Championship tournaments, but as great as the Slovakian offense is, outside of Zdeno Chara and maybe Lubomir Visnovksy, their defense is thinner than Ashley Olsen.

Breakthrough player of the tournament: Canada RW, Shane Doan: It's not his play so much that was a surprise. It was the fact that his skills were finally exposed in the national spotlight. While people have been waiting for the likes of Brad Isbister and Taylor Pyatt to emerge as the next big power forward, Doan has been putting up sensational numbers mixed with his rugged style of play and penchant for big open-ice hits for years in the relative obscurity of the Desert. If the rumours are indeed true that Joe Thornton wants to get out of Boston, one location he would look pretty comfortable is alongside Doan in a Coyotes uniform.

	Lemiuex and Sakic were just two of Canada's shining stars. (Source: Hockey Canada)

The final between Canada and Finland delivered as a great championship showdown and showed us at times what hockey can look like when it's played at a high skillful level with plenty of offensive pressure. If anything, watching the brilliance of Mario Lemieux and Joe Sakic, the magnificence of Martin Broduer and the rugged style of Joe Thornton and Shane Doan makes you thirst for the NHL to start even more. Specifically watching a healthy and fit Lemieux compete at such an elite level with plenty of talent surrounding him was a treat. Rarely if at all does a player so gifted in his/her sport come along where simply their game smarts and intellectual creativity can make you rise up out of your chair. Depriving fans of watching special players like Lemieux is as good an incentive for the players and owners of the NHL to find a solution and rectify this problem quickly.