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The secret behind Team Canada's dominance

Ban Canada.

Or at least break them up, these bearded brutes that have turned the World Cup of Hockey into their own playland.

At this point, flippancy might well be the only option left for opponents. The question such toying brings up has two sides: Is this Team Canada the country’s best-ever men’s side? Or are they simply too much of a match for opposition that's collectively on the decline?

There’s surely a gulf between those two extremes. Canada’s 15 wins in a row against the hockey world’s top flight, and a third successive “best-on-best” title in the offing Thursday night against Team Europe, is impossible to ignore. Over five games on home ice in Toronto, Canada has trailed for two minutes and 41 seconds. Sidney Crosby has been brilliant, Carey Price has looked like himself again, and on down the bench everyone else has stepped up and filled their roles.

Canada's Brent Burns and Patrice Bergeron celebrate a goal in the preliminary round at the World Cup. (Getty)
Canada's Brent Burns and Patrice Bergeron celebrate a goal in the preliminary round at the World Cup. (Getty)

Against all that, no one has threatened. The one hope for neutrals, the 23-and-under side known as North America that was easily the most watchable experiment in the game since shootouts -- hockey’s not known for experimentation, so it’s a pretty low bar -- never got the chance. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference, and TNA in this incarnation (or any other, it seems) is gone forever so it’s not like we’ll ever find out.

Even if this excellence hasn’t made for an especially competitive show and the feeling in and around the Air Canada Centre has been buzzless of late, the television numbers indicate interest -- CBC and Sportsnet attracted 2.1 million viewers Tuesday night, while the Blue Jays checked in at 1.6 million. So people still do care, despite the empty seats.

No, the most notable element of this Canadian success has been how easily everyone on the roster has taken on different roles than the ones they usually fill in their NHL day jobs. Front-line centres have become third-line wingers. Save for Sidney Crosby, who wears the 'C' here, six NHL captains have stepped down from that role. Price is the undisputed No. 1 in goal. No one complains. They just go out and do what they have to do.

It wasn’t always this way, though you might not know it given the packaging. Part of consuming this tournament has included the steady diet of boomer nostalgia that sometimes threatens to choke you, viz. Scotiabank’s adverts trotting out iconic goal calls down the ages back to Henderson in Moscow.

The anniversary of that one on Thursday cued the usual reminiscing in sepia tones that’s guaranteed to make the eyes of anyone under the age of 45 glaze over. That first series with the Soviets, and its startling arc, started the era of best-on-best that has continued until now, albeit on and off. Never mind that the NHL was at war with the old WHA for players at the time, leaving Bobby Hull and a number of others at home, or that there was sniping about playing time that led to a mutiny among those who did go.

If any of that kind of stuff has happened during this era, it’s been well hidden. Credit goes to Mike Babcock & Co. for that, the coach’s handling of questions around P.K. Subban’s role at Sochi having been proven right. Almost from the moment where Roberto Luongo took over from a grumbling Martin Brodeur in Vancouver six years ago, the course was set that Canada finds themselves still enjoying.

Talent is surely the most important element but on any group of all-stars, accepting secondary roles and pulling for the greater good is more exception than rule. And that, more than the question of who owns this game or who is blowing it, might well be the biggest takeaway of this whole exhibition, and this era we’re in that shows no signs of abating.

Well, that and whether it’s Brent Burns or Joe Thornton who wins the best beard intramural. Break ‘em up? Ban them? The world’s best hope to handle these Samsons, for now anyway, may be scissors.

CORRECTION: An earlier version incorrectly stated the amount of time Canada has trailed its opponents. It has been updated with the correct total.