Can Canada score a goal?

I know Canada excels in many winter sports; it's in the Top 5 countries for medals so far. But this is Canada, and hockey is hockey.

While the women's team scores at the drop of a hat (trick), the men's team has now gone TWO straight games without a goal. Today, the loss was to undefeated Finland 2-0. Canada now stands at 2-2.

Canada will advance to the quarterfinals anyway. But how long they will stay there depends on getting goal scoring.

The excuses seem ready-made: the Gretzky issue, transition from NHL to Italy. My thought is the huge ice surface plays a role. When you watch the games on TV, it looks like you could play two games simultaneously on that surface.

The smaller ice plays to the advantage of the Canada and U.S. teams (the U.S. also struggling at 1-2-1). In 2002, they played on the smaller ice at Salt Lake City and will again in 2010 in Vancouver.

The other reasoning is that these other countries got a whole lot better since 2002. After watching Switzerland and Finland shut down Canada, I agree.

The last preliminary men's game is Tuesday against the Czech Republic at 10:30 a.m. EST on CBC and hopefully MSNBC in the U.S. The quarterfinals start Wednesday. The gold-medal game airs live in the United States (NBC) and Canada (CBC) at 8 a.m. EST Sunday.