Norway gave Canada all they could handle Thursday at the World Hockey Championship before the Canadians scored late to eke out a triumph.
For all you people out there, thinking that the World Hockey Championship tournament is mostly just a waste of time, because the best players aren't going to the be there anyway and because there are only seven big hockey nations in the world, let me tell you this: for a hockey lover, there's no better place to be than the World Championships.
In Canada.
This year's tournament has been especially fun thanks to a couple of upsets, and the solid play of countries like Belarus, Denmark, Norway, and Germany.
From the box de presse up here in Quebec City, it looks like the hockey world is expanding, instead of imploding, and that the the gap between the big and small is closing, not widening.
Sure, Italy won't be challenging Canada any time soon, and France can be happy for each goal it scores on Russia, but instead of the Big Seven — Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and the US - we can soon start to talk about the Big Ten.
OK, maybe not.
But Switzerland, Germany, Belarus, Denmark are working hard.
And the sooner we have the Big Ten, the better. It'd be good for the game. And what's good for the game, is good for all of us.