There wasn't the high drama of 2010, instead there was pure domination.

Canada defeated Sweden 3-0 to win gold at the Sochi Olympics, becoming the first country to win back-to-back gold medals since the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and have now won three of the last four golds in Olympic hockey.

Canada-USA: A rematch of the 2010 Olympic final with a berth in the gold medal game on the line. It doesn't get any better, unless the game was being broadcast at a proper time and we (self-centred) Westerners didn't have to burn through our employer's bandwidth to watch the action.

Just like in Vancouver both teams have taken drastically different paths to their showdown. So who has the edge? Let's break it down.

Only in Canada can an undefeated round robin turn into a crisis.

Canada has yet to lose a game heading into the elimination portion of the tournament, but the problem is they aren't beating teams by enough and haven't looked as dominant as they should. Canada looked sloppy early against Norway, and only managed to win 3-1; they pummeled Austria 6-0, soothing the nation's collective nerves somewhat, but then barely eked out a 2-1 overtime win against a stifling Finnish team.

MURICA!!!

National pride was on the line for Canada in Vancouver four years ago and a similar pressure exists in Sochi for the Russians. The added element to this year's Olympics should make for another memorable hockey tournament.

But there is more to these games than just Russian national pride and/or Canadian interloper heartbreaking. There are plenty of players with things to prove or compelling storylines of their own.

Here are some of the interesting players to follow during this year's Olympics.

Steve Yzerman sits alone in a dark room, plotting his next move. "Lord Yzerman", his assistant meekly offers, "a decision must be made. What shall we do about S-s-s-s-s..." He can't bring himself to say the name. Yzerman looks at him with cold, steal eyes. "Bring me the head of young Douglas Hamilton."

On Monday, Steve Yzerman and his staff released a list of 47 players invited to Olympic orientation camp being held Aug. 25-28.

The decision on who makes the team, as always, will be difficult, as Canada is loaded at all positions. But as the Olympics are in Sochi, Russia this year, the international ice will be a huge factor, so skating ability will be a major selection criterion.

"Ultimately, we'll pick the best players available to us," Yzerman said on a conference call. "But playing on a bigger ice surface, I believe there is a priority on being able to skate."

Olympic camp will give the Team Canada brass a closer look at the Olympic hopefuls. There is a chance for a player snubbed from orientation camp to nab a roster spot, like Patrice Bergeron in 2010 and Bryan McCabe in 2006, but it isn't likely.

Here's a look at the camp invitees and how good of a chance they have at making the 25-man Russia-invading squad.

Canada will have to wait another year before getting a shot at a gold medal.

The USA defeated Canada 5-1 in the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship semi-finals on Thursday, overwhelming a supposed dream team squad from the opening whistle to the closing horn.

The US will face Sweden in the gold medal game and Canada will take on Russia in the bronze medal game.

In a collection of amusing and entertaining tweets, comedian Norm Macdonald recapped the 1972 Summit Series on Monday night.

Here are his tweets, in addition to highlights from the series as well as some footnotes explaining what he's talking about in a little more detail.

We're over a week into the NHL lockout and the lines of communication between both sides has pretty much disintegrated.

Bill Daly said today that he hopes talks will resume shortly. Well, if you're one of the heavy hitters during negotiations don't you think it would be helpful if you picked up the phone and scheduled something? Don't be afraid of making the first move, this isn't a middle school dance.

So as the outlook becomes bleaker every day it's time to start preparations for a long, protracted vacation from the NHL. But that doesn't mean a vacation from hockey. There is plenty to look forward to this season, it just won't be happening in the NHL.

Check out a list of some of the things to look forward to over at The Good Point.

It all came down to this. Canada vs. the Soviet Union. At stake? Only world domination (at least on the ice).

Canada got off to a rocky start and initially looked like they were on the verge of being blown out. But a little bit of Canadian gumption helped the team pick themselves off the mat and eventually back into the game.

Like the other two games in the series, game three was a classic, and goes down in history as one of the best hockey games of all time.

Just slightly over 17 years ago Sports Illustrated ran a cover story that proclaimed the NHL was hot, while the NBA was not. Yes, at one point hockey was cool in a mainstream way.

The New York Rangers just won their first Stanley Cup in over 50 years. There were major stars in all the major American markets: Wayne Gretzky in LA, Mark Messier in New York, Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr in Pittsburgh, Jeremy Roenick in Chicago, Steve Yzerman in Detroit, and Cam Neely in Boston. It was a good time for the NHL.

It was such a good time that newly appointed commissioner Gary Bettman continued aggressively expanding the NHL into non-traditional markets. It seemed like a good idea at the time (well, as long as you weren’t Canadian and violently opposed to such things).

What happened next was a decade of decline. 

We're on the eve of destruction. No, some radical church hasn't pronounced tomorrow the day of the rapture. Tomorrow is the start of NHL free agency, usually a time when general mangers forget their plans for spending money wisely and istead go money drunk. Because the salary cap took a huge jump and this year's crop of free agents is terribly weak (think, Ville Leino might be the second best UFA forward if we don't count Teemu Selanne), some teams are going to drop huge cash on 10 goal scorers. What's most frightening is that the Rangers have over $20 million in cap space. Glen Sather shall pronounce "$7 million contracts for all!"

To keep you occupied until tomorrow at noon, you can read my latest post over at The Good Point. This week's article focuses on the state of goaltending in Canada. It's a dark time for Canadian goaltenders. Carey Price might just be the best Canadian goaltender and he was being routinely booed last season. That's not reassuring.

I have another post featured on The Good Point this week. In today's article I discuss whether 'Canada's team' actually exists or whether this is just concocted by the media.

Well, there is a 'Canada's team', but they only play in IIHF hockey tournaments; they are not the Canucks. Canada's team won't ever be the Leafs, Sens, Oilers, Flames, or Canadiens either. Maybe the Jets will become Canada's team, but that's just because no one wants to see them leave again.

It's the end of the week and if anyone else is like me, that means keeping yourself hard at work will be difficult. In fact, keeping yourself motivated with the weekend looming is impossible, so you might as well give in and check out a few new posts I have over at The Good Point.

First, is a post about Canada's demise at the World Hockey Championship. For the second straight year Canada failed to medal. If people in Canada cared about the WHC they'd be pissed.

Second, is a look around the league at the unfortunate teams who missed this year's post-season. What are they doing? What are their plans? Well, hopefully they're working diligently to make sure they aren't on the outside of the playoffs again next season. If they are, I've listed their major priorities for the summer.

Recently, the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre published an article that argued that Canada could support six more teams, increasing the total to 12. The paper, written by Tony Keller and Neville McGuire, is an extremely interesting read that makes a compelling argument that Canada has only six teams because of politics, not feasibility, and certainly not demand.

The paper suggests that Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver can all support another NHL franchise, provided that the new teams share the existing NHL arenas in each city. In addition to another franchise in Toronto, Southern Ontario can support another team in Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, or London. Finally, both Quebec and Winnipeg can support a team – a notion being discussed endlessly with the precarious settlement of both the Phoenix Coyotes and Atlanta Thrashers.

The paper argues that because the NHL largely derives their profits from ticket sales and concessions (in contrast to a league like the NFL which has a lucrative television contract), having a small market that generates big interest in hockey is much more valuable than a large market with less interest. Winnipeg > Phoenix.

The paper uses Edmonton as a benchmark because it is one of the smallest markets in the NHL and houses the smallest arena in the NHL. However, because of the fanatical nature of Edmonton fans, the Oilers are not only able to survive, but strive. According to Keller and McGuire, ticket and in-arena concession revenue makes up approximately 50-75% of a team’s total revenue; in 2007-2008, the Oilers generated approximately $1.2 million per home game from tickets alone.

I highly recommend reading the entire article. Based on the variables examined in the paper, it is clear that Canada can support an additional six teams. The demand is evidently there. And, for the most part, so is the infrastructure. However, the authors do not look at other important variables when examining each city's viability. When they do mention certain drawbacks they do not expand on them and leave them largely ignored. The authors freely admit this stating that their objective was to discover the cities that the free market would support, not what the NHL would allow.

I believe the amount of Canadian teams in the NHL needs to increase, but there could be major repercussions to expanding the NHL’s presence in Canada.