Russia's Evgeni Malkin, left, congratulates Alexander Ovechkin after he scored against the United States in a 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Russia won 5-4. (AP Photo)
The World Championship tournament will kick off in Quebec City in ten days.
And in ten days, hockey fans in Finland, Sweden, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic will get ready for their annual hockeyfest, their yearly shot of patriotism, and the subsequent late nights in front of the television.
A 3:30 pm game in Halifax, the other host city, is a 9:30 pm game in Sweden, a 10:30 pm game in Finland, and an 11:30 pm game in Moscow. The Russian fans can just have a World Championship game as an appetizer as they wait for a Malkin/Ovechkin game later the same night.
The 7:00 pm game, in turn, is a 2:00 am game in Finland.
Don't go buying Nokia phones in the next two months. The people on the line may be tired.
(Just kidding, go out and buy another Nokia, they're great phones, and not even manufactured in Finland so there's no risk of the assembly line people staying up late to watch those games.)
The first week or so is still a warm-up. The Big Seven still work with their rosters as the second round of the NHL Playoffs winds down, still adding players, still working with their game, playing against the lesser known hockey nations, such as Belarus, Norway, Slovenia, Denmark, Italy, and France (that was promoted to the highest World Championship division this year). Next year, Hungary will return to the World Championships after a 70 year absence.
The second round of the World Championships begins on May 8, and that's when the stakes get a little higher as the four best in each qualification group play in the quarterfinals. However, I'm not going on a limb here if I predict that seven of eight teams in the quarterfinals are Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and the United States.
That is when the Worlds really begin for people in the Big Seven.
And for some, the tournament ends the next day.
On second thought, depending on how it goes for Finland or Sweden, you may want to hold off buying a Nokia or that Swedish-made Volvo.
You never know. In the Turin Olympics, 80 percent of Finns and millions of Swedes watched the final between the two countries.
Some of them may be putting together your next car.