It’s USA and Canada

Pavol Demitra had a tie game on his stick.

Everyone’s plans for a USA/Canada final were almost derailed.

Demitra, not far away from Canada’s net — the upper half of which was empty — in the dwindling seconds of regulation with the Slovaks down by a goal, rang the crossbar.

When the puck left Demitra’s stick, I thought overtime was on its way.

Guess not.

Overtime would have been both incredibly intense, and interesting at the same time. Intense for the obvious reasons. Interesting because all of the momentum would have been in Slovakia’s favor, given that the Slovaks scored three straight goals in the third period and Canada’s offensive output was close to zero in the third.

Nevertheless, we get the USA and Canada at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday. Not a bad event for a Sunday afternoon.

It should be be epic. I’m hoping for a game similar in intensity to the game the two teams played last Sunday, which the Americans won, 5-3. Even though the last game was played just a week ago, these are two different teams at this point in the tournament. One might as well throw out that last game when trying to predict the outcome of the final.

Canada’s team chemistry seems to have grown exponentially over the past week, most notably seen against Russia when they blew them out of the arena and looked like a cohesive unit on the ice. Canada also has a new goalie in Roberto Luongo (I felt like he was their best option coming into the tournament). The lines got shuffled a bit.

I am a bit intrigued by the Canadians’ inability to generate any offense late in the game against the Slovaks, although much of that can probably be attested to Canada shifting into a defensive mode late.

With the Americans, I mean, they scored six goals in less than 13 minutes against no slouches in Finland (although Miikka Kiprusoff certainly aided in the goal-scoring process.) Could they do that at the beginning of the tournament? No. In fact, they couldn’t even set up a power play.

The only aspect of the last game that I can take is that Team USA certainly has the combination of size, speed and grit to match the Canadians, a testament to the terrific job that American general manager Brian Burke and Co. in assembling the American team.

Remember when everyone was wondering what Chris Drury was doing on the team? A few hundred blocked shots later, we have our answer.

And, of course, the Americans have that Ryan Miller guy.

Sure, these are two changed teams. But I hope we get the same intensity level that we got last week, because that kind of game is so fun to watch. In fact, we could get an even better game. Higher stakes means higher intensity. And for some of these players, there are no higher stakes than a gold medal.

It’s the USA and Canada. It’s for the gold. I expect one of the most memorable hockey games in recent memory.