The U.S. and Canadian men's hockey teams were elminated from the Olympic tournament yesterday, by Finland and Russia respectively, leaving North America without a representative in the medal games.  Instead the Finns and Russians, along with the Swedes and Czechs will duke it out over the hardware.

This wasn't supposed to happen.  Canada, the defending gold medalists, were supposed to put up a better fight.  After all, they had a roster stacked with veteran NHL talent and scorign ability.  Likewise, the U.S. team was supposed to avenge several lackluster (and embarrassing) Olympic performances with a lineup of experienced NHLers. 

Notice a theme here?  Age.  Both the Canadians and Americans went with experience over younger talent, hoping that with scarce time to practice together and gel as a team, veteran leadership and game experience would be enough to propel them through.  So they went with the old standbys -- Chelios, Sakic, Hatcher, Draper -- instead of young guys like Crosby, Staal and Speeza, all having fantastic NHL seasons.

But there was a fundamental fallacy in their strategy.  On the larger international ice with little rest and back-to-back games, the old guys couldn't keep up.  Both the U.S. and Canadian teams, who had talked so emphatically about their goal scoring potential headed into the games, had trouble scoring.  Why?  They had no legs under them.  Both teams looked like they were skating through quicksand throughout the tournament.  They never got into rhythm, never got anything going, and fell back on trying to rely on their individual talent rather than working as a team.

Nowhere was that more evident than when both teams played Russia.  Bouyed by an influx of young talent -- 20-year-old Alex Ovechkin, 19-year-old Evgeni Malkin and 22-year-old Ilya Kovalchuk -- combining with veteran playmakers such as Alexei Kovalev and Pavel Datsuyk, the Russians out-skated, out-hustled and all over out-played both teams.

A lot of soul seraching and finger-pointing will be done in the USA Hockey and Team Canada boardrooms this week.  Blame will be hurled at the players, coaches and manegement.  While there is plenty to go around, a hard look back should be taken at the player selection process for both teams.  The strategy was obviously flawed.

Russia's Sergei Gonchar, who plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins, seemed to get it, wondering aloud after the game why Crosby was left off the Canadian roster, "The big ice would be an advantage for a guy like him.  He has great speed, great vision.  He has the skills and it would be a great advantage for him to play. His style fits this game perfectly."