Going for gold

So, the Olympic Winter Games are now well and truly under way, and Canada has its first gold in the shape of Alexandre Bilodeau in the moguls, the skiing event that requires compulsory knee replacement surgery every alternate year. Bilodeau is the first Canadian ever to win a gold medal on home soil (or snow, or ice for that matter), but for most Canucks the real action gets going tonight when the Canadian men's hockey team takes the ice for the first time. Canada's women have already got their hockey campaign off to a good start, but the men are the real focus of attention, and the public's obsession with, and expectations of, the team is every bit as intense as it gets in England when the soccer team are playing in the World Cup, with one major difference.

The Canadian hockey team actually have a chance of winning!