Today is a big day for fans of Canadian hockey. At 16:30 EST we're going to learn who will be representing us in Turin. We're also only five days away from our Junior team's opening game against Finland in the 2006 World Junior Hockey Championship.

I'm a huge fan of this tournament and this year the man between the pipes is none other than Justin Pogge, the Maple Leafs' first pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. With Bryan McCabe likely on the wrong side of the bubble it's sweet having a little blue and white representation on a national team.

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Earlier today I wrote about Bryan McCabe being one of 60 players on Team Canada's preliminary roster for the Olympic hockey tournament next February in Turin, Italy. In fact, The Great One has announced a list of 81 hopefuls which includes five Leafs: McCabe, Ed Belfour, Jason Allison, Jeff O'Neill and Eric Lindros.

Here's all 81...

Goaltenders
Ed Belfour, Toronto; Martin Brodeur, New Jersey; Dan Cloutier, Vancouver; Curtis Joseph, Phoenix Coyotes; Roberto Luongo, Florida; Andrew Raycroft, Boston Bruins; Jose Theodore, Montreal; Marty Turco, Dallas; Cam Ward, Carolina.

Defencemen
Adrian Aucoin, Chicago; Rob Blake, Colorado; Jay Bouwmeester, Florida; Dan Boyle, Tampa Bay; Nick Boynton, Boston; Eric Brewer, St. Louis; Eric Desjardins, Philadelphia; Adam Foote, Columbus; Scott Hannan, San Jose, Barret Jackman, St. Louis; Ed Jovanovski, Vancouver; Bryan McCabe, Toronto; Kyle McLaren, San Jose Sharks; Derek Morris, Phoenix; Scott Niedermayer, Anaheim; Dion Phaneuf, Calgary; Chris Phillips, Ottawa; Chris Pronger, Edmonton; Wade Redden, Ottawa; Robyn Regehr, Calgary; Sheldon Souray, Montreal; Steve Staios, Edmonton; Brad Stuart, San Jose.

Forwards
Jason Allison, Toronto; Jason Arnott, Dallas; Patrice Bergeron, Boston; Todd Bertuzzi, Vancouver; Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Minnesota; Daniel Briere, Buffalo; Jeff Carter, Philadelphia; Marc Chouinard, Minnesota; Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh; Shane Doan, Phoenix; Kris Draper, Detroit; Simon Gagne, Philadelphia; Dany Heatley, Ottawa; Shawn Horcoff, Edmonton; Jarome Iginla, Calgary; Paul Kariya, Nashville; Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay; Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh; Eric Lindros, Toronto; Joffrey Lupul, Anaheim; John Madden, New Jersey; Kirk Maltby, Detroit; Patrick Marleau, San Jose; Brendan Morrison, Vancouver; Brenden Morrow, Dallas; Glen Murray, Boston; Rick Nash, Columbus; Rob Niedermayer, Anaheim; Joe Nieuwendyk, Florida; Jeff O'Neill, Toronto; Michael Peca, Edmonton; Keith Primeau, Philadelphia; Mark Recchi, Pittsburgh; Brad Richards, Tampa Bay; Michael Richards, Philadelphia; Michael Ryder, Montreal; Joe Sakic, Colorado; Marc Savard, Atlanta; Brendan Shanahan, Brendan, Detroit; Ryan Smyth, Edmonton; Jason Spezza, Ottawa; Eric Staal, Carolina; Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay; Steve Sullivan, Nashville; Alex Tanguay, Colorado; Joe Thornton, Boston; Scott Walker, Nashville; Wes Walz, Minnesota; Steve Yzerman, Detroit.

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Hey Ry, break out the jersey. Bryan McCabe will be one of 60 players on Team Canada's preliminary roster for the Olympic hockey tournament next February in Turin, Italy.

The complete list of 60 will be unveiled Monday and the 23 man roster will be announced in late December. McCabe, fresh off an eight-point week in which he earned defensive player of the week honours, leads the Leafs in scoring.

And we thought he was all about the "can opener" check.

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Ah crap. The Czech Republic played us perfectly, smothering our top forwards and allowing few decent scoring opportunities. Despite finishing second, Canada retained its number one status in IIHF world rankings. That's a lone brightspot on an otherwise dismal day.

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Lord have mercy. I'm not as young as I used to be and my heart can't take that kind of a nail-biting finish. Up 4-0, we should have been home free but instead we let Russia steal the momentum and almost steal the game.

We were very luck to hang on. In the third period, the Russians kept coming and coming and looked destined to tie it were it not for a little luck and great goaltending. Sure, we scored an insurance marker from the blue line that was wrongly disallowed, but that just so we had an excuse should we blow this one.

When it counts, Canada finds a way to win and we'll be playing for our third World Championship in a row tomorrow at 13:30 EST. Go Canada Go!

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Joe Thornton scored with 4:22 remaining to give Canada a 5-4 victory over Slovakia in their quarter-final game earlier today, slapping a shot from the circle to the right of goaltender Jan Lasak that sent the puck sailing into the far top corner of the net for his sixth goal of the tournament. Simon Gagne, with two goals, Dany Heatley and Ryan Smyth also scored for Canada.

We get the winner of the Russia-Finland game later today in the semi-finals Saturday.

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From TSN.ca, I steal the following: "Canada generated only a handful of chances as the Ukrainians played five men back, used hooking and obstruction liberally and left little room to make plays."

There's our excuse. Now I feel better.

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When Rick Nash has to score a third period goal to give you a 2-1 lead over the Ukraine, you know you're in trouble. Methinks this team isn't as good as I think it is.

If we barely get by the Ukraine, and there's ten minutes left to play so we could still blow this thing, how the hell are we going to beat the good teams? The struggle against Latvia was a sure warning sign that this isn't our World Cup or Salt Lake City teams that truly were world beaters.

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Rick Nash and Patrick Marleau scored 51 seconds apart in the third period to lead Canada to a 3-3 comeback tie with Finland at the IIHF world hockey championship. It wasn't supposed to be this way. We're supposed to beat Finland who is without Saku Koivu, Tuomo Ruutu, Jere Lehtinen, Teemu Selanne and goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff.

The tie gives us five points which puts us in second place in Group F, behind Sweden who is playing the USA right now. We should be okay, but we'd better start winning again if we intend on winning this tournament for the third year in a row.

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Perhaps I jinxed us when bragging about the streak the other day. We went 6-0 at the World Cup last September and 6-0 at the World Junior Championship in January. Unfortunately, we won't be running the gamut at this year's world championship.

Up 2-0 in the first, I was ready to blow the Swedes out. I was feeling a little cocky and began looking beyond this game to tomorrow. What happened? The Swedes are a good team and our D didn't show up and there were too few players playing their ass off. We'd better show up tomorrow against Finland.

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