ALL SWEDES AND NO FINISH: T&T WINS 0-0

• Go figure. You adopt a team for the World Cup based on ancestral ties to that country and the team's underrated reputation and long odds of winning. Naturally, Sweden, the Tre Kroner, were held to a 0-0 tie by Trinidad & Tobago today at the World Cup. Oops, that should say nil-nil -- forgot to adopt the TV talking head's trick of using the lingo to create the impression of actual knowledge.
  
  T&T goalkeeper Shaka Hislop was sensational for his country, and as upsetting as this is for the Swedish people, without Hislop the Tre Kroner win this 2-0. (Or two-nil, as you like it.) Plus Sweden didn't look less lukewarm than England did in the other Group 3 match, where it beat Paraguay 1-0 on an early own goal.
  
  If the Swedes don't turn in an impressive performance against the Paraguayans on Thursday, then push the panic button, 'cause it'll be over.
  
  Besides, how upset can Swedes get? Beautiful blondes everywhere, 5.6% unemployment, all-ABBA-all-the-time radio stations and you don't have to use the Euro but still get to be part of the EU. What's not to like?
• Who the hell is Jonah Keri and who is he to speak for Canadian sports fans? Not only does his article betray that he hasn't been spent much time in his home country lately -- who goes cross-border shopping now that every town larger than Napanee, Ont., has a Wal-Mart and the loonie is at 90 cents U.S.? -- but he commits the astonishing stupidity of referring to the Oilers as "biggest underdog ever to make it to the Cup finals."
  
  Well, no, not actually. Yes, the Oilers are the first No. 8 seed to reach the Stanley Cup final since the current East-West playoff format was adopted in 1993-94. But biggest underdog ever? The Oilers were a 95-point team in the regular season, but as Tom Benjamin showed, that's mostly due to the scheduling disadvantages faced by teams from either the West Coast or Western Canada.
  
  The addition of 4-on-4 overtime and the shootout skews winning percentages, but the Oilers are not the biggest underdog to ever make the Cup final, now matter how much Keri and his dubious dilettante brethren would like to have you believe.
  
  Granted, they're a bigger underdog story story than the the '82 Vancouver Canucks, who had a .481 winning percentage but never played a team with a winning record in the first three rounds.
  
  However, the Oilers can't top the the 1991 Minnesota North Stars, who played .425 hockey in the regular season, but upset the President's Trophy-winning Blackhawks in Round 1 and extended the Pittsburgh Penguins of Mario Lemieux, Paul Coffey and Jaromir Jagr to six games in the final.
  
  For now, the biggest underdog to reach the Cup final -- and this is only since the contest for the fabled chalice became an NHL-only affair -- remains the 1937-38 Chicago Blackhawks, who won after a 14-25-9 (.385) regular season, still the worst record ever for a finalist.
  
  And no modern team can match the 4,400-mile, 23-day trek -- by dogsled, boat and train -- that Dawson City, Yukon made to challenge the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Cup back in 1905.
  
  Now that was a true underdog story.
  
  As for the Oilers, this isn't the most popular position I'll ever espouse, but the Swedish women's team beating the U.S. at the Olympics in Torino was the upset of 2006, when you consider the past history and its long-term ramifications for the women's game.
• It's only a passing reference in a Winnipeg Sun column but it looks like Onterrio Smith might be in tough to survive the final cuts with the CFL's Winnipeg Blue Bombers: he came to camp overweight, got injured and oh yes, on his first carry of the pre-season, he fumbled. The Sun notes: "If he makes the Bombers, it will be on name alone, but even Emmett Smith would have trouble cracking the roster with that kind of performance." (Italics mine.) Does that apply to E-m-m-i-t-t Smith too?

Forty minutes till the live blog for Game 3. Can't wait.