Canadians

Team Canada had it all covered. Months of meticulous preparation included even the smallest travel details. The roster carefully blended role players with stars. The Canadians had the leadership, the solid defensive system, the goaltending, the depth. But the gold-medal game will be played tomorrow at the Big Hat Arena between the Czech Republic and Russia, because there were two things Team Canada general manager Bob Clarke couldn't factor into his planning. Dominik Hasek and the Olympic format.

Talk about irony. Paul DiPietro, Canadian by birth and Italian by descent, plays for Switzerland's national hockey team because he married a Swiss woman and also plays for EV Zug in the Swiss League A. Yesterday, DiPietro scored two goals as the Swiss stunned Canada, 2-0, at Torino Esposizioni, giving the Swiss upsets of heavily favored Czech Republic and Canada in back-to-back games. "I am taking it all in right now," DiPietro said. "I'm enjoying the moment. I said I wanted to come in here and work as a team.

Just a bunch of cute Canadians in their 20s looking for love? Look again. Love and Human Remains unintentionally suggests that being single is a severe personality disorder. In this peculiar cross between Friends and a Freddy Krueger movie, we have seven characters in search of a situation - all menaced by a serial killer whose signature is ripping an earring through his prey's pierced lobe. Potential victims? The cynical waiter who used to be an actor (isn't it usually the reverse?

Barely half the players in the NHL are born in Canada, the lowest total in league history. The number of U.S.-born players is 14.1 percent, a 17-year low. There were 375 Canadians (52.3 percent) on Opening-Night rosters compared to 380 (53.2 percent) a year ago. There were 241 Europeans (33.6 percent) on Opening-Night rosters compared to 227 (31.8 percent) a year ago. There are 101 American-born players this year compared to 107 (15 percent) one year ago. Twenty years ago, the NHL was 81.8 percent Canadian, 10 percent American and 8.2 percent European.

The Americans will have to play spoilers. The Canadians should repeat. And the Czechs could be among the strongest teams at these Winter Games. The men's ice hockey tournament opens today as the United States takes on Latvia, while Canada faces Italy. Four years ago in Salt Lake City, Canada won the gold over the Americans in an all-North American final. That scenario is a long shot to happen again, given that the United States, which is in Group B, is such an underdog.

All right, so maybe September is too early to play hockey. But if teams always played hockey the way Team Canada and the Soviet Union did last night in Game 1 of the Canada Cup finals, 12 months of the sport might not be enough. In a game that veteran hockey observers at the venerable Forum rated one of the greatest of all time, the Soviet Union drew first blood in the best-of- three series with a 6-5 overtime victory. Alexander Semak's goal with 5 minutes, 33 seconds gone in the sudden-death period ended a classic that kept a crowd of 14,588 cheering and standing.

Eric Lindros might not be playing in the NHL this season, but he can play for Team Canada at the world championships if he wants to. Bob Nicholson, president of the Canadian Hockey Association, extended the official invitation to Lindros yesterday afternoon in Calgary, where the association's headquarters are located. Coincidentally, the Flyers have a couple of days between games here before meeting the Flames on Thursday. Michael Peca, who has not played for Buffalo this season because of a contract dispute, was also invited to play for Canada in the 17-day tournament, which begins April 28 and will be held in Germany.

Across Canada, there was a single response: Whew. Sidney Crosby scored the only goal of a shootout in which an entire nation hung on every shot, giving Canada a 3-2 victory over Switzerland last night and avoiding a second inconceivable loss to the Swiss in as many Olympics. Canada, a huge favorite despite a 2-0 upset defeat to Switzerland in 2006 that ranks among the greatest in Olympic history, took a 2-0 lead early in the second and looked to be cruising. But the Swiss, with two NHL players to Canada's 23, came back to tie it on second-period goals by Ivo Ruthemann and Patrick von Gunten.

It had been suggested that both Team Canada and the Soviet Union would go through the motions in their Canada Cup preliminary-round matchup, because both had semifinal berths locked up. Aw, come on. Do you really think that the world's two biggest hockey powers ever would play for fun? Last night, they played 60 minutes of very meaningful hockey, and Team Canada sent the sellout crowd of 17,056 at Copps Coliseum home happy when Wayne Gretzky scored with only 2 minutes, 27 seconds remaining to create a 3-3 tie. "Ah, you never play the Soviets for nothing," said Flyers general manager Bob Clarke, who played a lot of meaningful games against the Soviets and now is one of Team Canada's managing directors.

TORONTO - Two men were arrested and charged with plotting a terrorist attack against a Canadian passenger train with support from al Qaeda elements in Iran, police said Monday. The case bolstered allegations by some governments and experts of a relationship of convenience between Shiite-led Iran and the predominantly Sunni Arab terrorist network. Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, had "direction and guidance" from al Qaeda members in Iran, though there was no reason to think the planned attacks were state-sponsored, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia said.

LOS ANGELES - British tourist Michael Baugh and his wife said water had only trickled for days as they brushed their teeth, showered and drank from the taps at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, but they could not have imagined the disturbing reason. The body of a Canadian woman was later discovered at the bottom of one of four cisterns on the roof of the historic hotel near Skid Row. The tanks provide water for hotel taps and would have been used by guests for washing and drinking.

A Canadian drug broker, who supplied "massive" amounts of marijuana on consignment to a Philadelphia-based trafficker, pleaded guilty today to drug and money laundering charges. The broker, Dung Ngoc Nguyen, 53, may never have been caught if it hadn't been for a domestic dispute between the trafficker, John Q. Le, and his girlfriend. According to court documents, Nguyen took orders for marijuana from her home in Ontario from Le, who lived in West Chester and reputedly ran one of the largest drug distribution operations on the East Coast.

Growing up in Toronto, Lindi Ortega got her love of country music from her mother. "She had a big crush on Kris Kristofferson," the 33-year-old singer and songwriter recalls from a tour stop in Kingston, Ontario. "She used to listen to a lot of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings. . . . Then the older I got the more drawn to the genre I was. I think it had a lot to do with the lyrical content. A lot of Hank Williams was heartbreak, lonely, hurting, tear-in-your-beer kind of songs that just resonated with me. " Once she heard Outlaw country and Johnny Cash, "it was all over.

TORONTO - John Sheardown, 88, a former Canadian diplomat who sheltered fugitive American Embassy staffers at his Tehran home at great personal risk during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, has died. His wife, Zena, said Saturday that Mr. Sheardown passed away in an Ottawa hospital on Dec. 30. She said he had been treated for Alzheimer's disease for the last four years and also suffered from other ailments. Mr. Sheardown, the first secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Tehran at the time of the Islamic Revolution, played a key role in the events depicted in Ben Affleck's Oscar-contender film Argo , although he was not portrayed in the film.

WAYNE, N.J. - A tour bus from Canada bound for New York City overturned on an exit ramp in northern New Jersey early Saturday, slid down an embankment, and landed on its side, injuring 23 of 60 people on board, authorities said. The driver, who suffered a gash on his arm, told state police he was cut off by another vehicle, though it was not immediately clear if that caused the crash about 7:30 a.m. on eastbound I-80 in Wayne. Some windows burst in the crash and their frames pinned three people, but they were quickly freed and taken to hospitals with the other injured.

Jacqueline Brooks of Toronto, Canada, riding D-Niro, won the $10,000 FEI Grand Prix Freestyle at Dressage at Devon under the lights before a sellout crowd Saturday evening. Brooks scored 74.3 to beat Pierre St. Jacques of Anthony, Fla., on Lucky Tiger, who scored 73.550. St. Jacques edged out another Canadian, David Marcus of Ontario, on Chrevi's Capital, who scored 73.50. In most dressage competitions, riders must ride a preordained test. But in freestyle, although competitors must perform certain movements, they put the movements together in whatever sequence they like and select music to go with the ride that will best show off their horses' gaits.

Canadians dominated the Grand Prix Special during Dressage at Devon on Sunday afternoon, with David Marcus of Campbellsville, who was on the Canadian Olympic team in London, winning on Don Kontes with a score of 69.40. Marcus' London teammate, Ashley Holzer, who now lives in New York, was second on Degas 12 with a score of 68.40, and her student Eliana Cordai van Reese of Wellington, Fla., was third on Jewel's Adelante with 67.556. "This is only my second time showing Degas," Holzer said.

PORTLAND, Maine - Tensions between lobstermen in Maine and Canada are boiling over in a dispute caused not by too few lobsters but by too many. A potentially record-breaking haul in Maine and Canada this year has caused a market glut and a crash in wholesale prices. Fearing for their livelihood, Canadian fishermen in the last few days have angrily blocked truckloads of Maine lobsters from being delivered to processing plants in Canada that turn out lobster products for U.S. supermarkets and restaurants.

LONDON - The defense was stifling, even suffocating at times. The U.S. women put on a clinic Tuesday, forcing the Canadians to take bad shots or not allowing them to shoot at all. The Americans, who cruised into the semifinals of the Olympic basketball tournament with a 91-48 rout, harassed Canada into three shot-clock violations in the first seven minutes. "It's one thing to miss a shot, but to not be able to get a shot off says a lot about your defense," said U.S. coach Geno Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown.