2010 Canada Mens Olympic Hockey - First Preliminary Game-Norway

Only 13 days remain between now and the first puck drop at the 2010 Olympic Men’s Hockey tournament and expectations are high.

The rosters for the most part have been solidified aside from a few teams having to scramble to fill in spots for the odd injured player.

Canadian hockey fans have seen coverage and heard, read, and had their own speculation about this tournament since Vancouver was given the games.

Team Canada is stacked with the best players that Executive Director Steve Yzerman and staff could put in place with their vast knowledge and Canada is counting on them to go deep.

The Goaltenders are: No. 1 Roberto Luongo Vancouver Canucks, No. 29 Marc-Andre Fleury Pittsburgh Penguins, and No. 30 Martin Brodeur New Jersey Devils.

At this point who is going to be the number one isn’t as clear as it might have seemed a few weeks ago.

Martin Brodeur was breaking records seemingly on the daily and was shutting teams out and playing some of the best hockey of his long illustrious career.  But in recent weeks his play with the Devils has fallen off but I don’t expect him to be riding the pine.

Roberto Luongo and his Canucks have been on a tear and he has been making a case to lead Canada into these games, especially when the games are going to be played in his house at GM Place in Vancouver.

Marc-Andre Fleury isn’t expected to get starts but is there for the experience and may in four years at the next Winter Olympics in 2014 be the number one guy, but for now he is the third and the battle for starts is between the other two.

Whichever of these two guys gets the start in the first game Canada shouldn’t have a problem with their first opponent in the preliminary round, which is Norway.

Norway has never won any medal in Olympic Men’s Hockey since its beginning in 1920.

Canada as most know is one of the hockey powers in the world and has won 7 Gold, 4 Silver, and 2 Bronze in 21 Winter Olympic games.

The Norwegians feature one lone NHLer on their roster, defenseman for the Philadelphia Flyers, Ole Kristian Tollefsen who will most likely just enjoy the experience of being at the Olympics as his team will most likely get beaten badly in every game.

Norway doesn’t stand a chance in the first preliminary game nor do they have a shot at making anything more than a guest appearance in this tournament.

Canada should build some chemistry quickly from this lopsided game.

Just to clarify how the scales are tipped against Norway the odds makers have Canada at -125 to win this tournament outright which means you would have to bet 125 dollars to win 100.

 Norway on the other hand to win the tournament outright pays +200000, in which case if you bet 100 dollars on Norway you would win 20,000 dollars, an obvious underdog of underdogs!

Now don’t get me wrong, I am going to be glued to my television for this game to get a feel for who head Coach Mike Babcock will be playing together and how those players respond to each other on the ice.

Most of these players haven’t played together since the training camp which was held in the summer, so getting some immediate cohesion in a short tournament such as this is extremely important.

This game against Norway is the perfect start for team Canada to do just that and get on a roll right away.