Though I'm sure few Americans have noticed, the American national junior hockey team has advanced to the gold medal game of the World Junior Hockey Championship in Helsinki, Finland, to be played Monday at 12 noon EST. It's the first time the American juniors have advanced to the final, and they play the undefeated Canadians.
Canadians take the World Juniors quite seriously (hell, Canadians take hockey in any form quite seriously). The tournament begins every year on Boxing Day and lasts just over a week. If you're American and you're interested in seeing the gold medal game (which features many future NHL stars), try to find it on television; it's showing in Canada on TSN at 11:30am EST. Apparently in the US the game will be on NHL Center Ice and DirectTV satellite.
Naturally, ESPN says the Americans are favoured. They have an experienced side, and the money the United States has invested in their new national hockey program seems to be paying off. The pressure is much greater on the Canadian side, because Canada enters every hockey tournament expecting nothing less than a first place finish; so, even though Canada has medalled consistently for years, and won five consecutive gold medals in the mid-1990s, the press and the Canadian public expect a gold this time around.
This could be a watershed moment for American amateur hockey. I think the program that the US launched a few years ago, a program I think constituted a significant effort on their part to train under-18s for the national side, is Canada's worst nightmare come true. The Americans have shown, in soccer for example, that they have the money and the manpower to develop talent in almost any sport within a short amount of time. Canada seems to succeed on pure love of the game (after all, we've only got about 30 million people, about one tenth that of the US). At some point, the US investment in hockey will pay off -- big time.
Naturally, I'll be hoping for a Canadian victory. But the General salutes those Americans who have furthered the game of hockey in the United States. The US/Canada matchup seems to be the new Canada/Russia in international ice hockey.
2:02:43 AM 
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