THE WORLD JUNIORS AND CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

Prior to the shootout, the dominant image of Team Canada's semifinal game against the U.S. at the world junior hockey championship -- a 2-1 shootout victory -- was an American power play late in overtime that the Canadians just barely survived.

There was goalie Carey Price calmly steering aside American shots that could have ended Canada's gold-medal hopes and defenceman Ryan Parent staying out for the whole two minutes of the penalty kill. Parent was just going by instinct near the end of his shift, as he was completely spent, unable to get enough strength behind a clearing attempt to get the puck out of his own end, but the point is, he was out there. The Americans should have scored, they deserved to score, and still there was no way in hell they were going to. The outcome wasn't foreordained by that penalty kill, but if you're looking for a moment when this group of Canadian juniors established their own identity instead of merely being a group of 20 Hockey Canada automatons, that was it.

Now, why is this important beyond it allowing Canada to play Russia (4-2 winners over Sweden in the other semi) on Friday for the gold medal? As it happened, today's reading material is Chuck Klosterman's low culture manifesto Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. Twelve hours after last night's rant, the combination of reading Klosterman's argument that country artists such as Garth Brooks and Shania Twain are actually better at understanding the human condition than the likes of Bob Dylan and Liz Phair. Reading that while watching teen hockey players engage in a grim struggle against an American team who arguably deserved to win reminded me of how wannabe intellectuals like me sometime lose sight of the big picture. Seeing teenagers such as Parent and Price be tough in the face of a tough job, resonates with more people, and although they would never describe it in such a way, they might understand people better than I do. That quality helps you in a team sport, if not in art.

Anyway, it's a truth that TSN's coverage of the world juniors skews hokey and melodramatic, and most elements of the modern Canada may not as well exist (although the goaltending hero of the '06 tourney, Justin Pogge, was raised by a single mother). Yes, by the end of the tournament you can almost feel like you're held captive by the same block of commercials that are aired at the same point in each telecast. Then you see how it unfolded at the end today -- Jonathan Toews outwitting U.S. goalie Jeff Frazee not once, not twice but thrice in the shootout before Price stoned Peter Mueller to clinch the win -- and realize that is as close to a display of pure Canuck id as you're going to get most days.

As for analysis, there's not much to add. Canada is an underdog in the gold-medal game against the talented Russians. They haven't found enough secondary scoring among their forwards, so their best chance on Friday will be to win a 2-1 or 3-1 game on the strength of Price's goaltending and their defence corps. Is it just me, or have the world juniors basically come to resemble NHL hockey from 4-5 years ago, where a 4-2 game practically seemed high-scoring?

Another world juniors note: Rogers Sportsnet is reporting that the International Ice Hockey Federation is considering expanding the world juniors to a 12-team format. That figures, since only in this year has the depth caught up enough to justify inviting 10 teams. Is the IIHF taking advice on expansion from Gary Bettman?

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.