Mark Buehrle dominant as Blue Jays outlast Royals

Mark Buehrle's fastball tops out at 84 miles per hour and isn't what anyone above the minor leagues would describe as intimidating.

But it's effective, and tough on the catcher.

Working in his typical fast pace, Buehrle (11-7) pitched seven scoreless innings to pick up his 11th win of the season as Toronto outlasted the Kansas City Royals 3-2 at Rogers Centre.

Buehrle struck out five and allowed four hits in his 50th career start — and 22nd career victory — against his former division rival.

"It's a hard 84, my fingers really hurt when he pitches," Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia said with a laugh. "It really pops the mitt so I think it's a loud 84 — he'd be happy that I said that.

"But he mixes up pitches. He mixes up sinker, cutter, change-up, curveball, in, out, up, down. He really commands the entire zone and it's impressive."

Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie was also impressed with Buehrle's outing. Lawrie says he's a fan of the lefty's quick pace, which he believes helps offset his opponents.

"That's one of my biggest things — pace," the Langley, B.C., native said. "It keeps everybody in the game and it allows everyone to stay in the game, but he gets us back in the dugout. I think he makes the other teams uncomfortable by just working with his pace, gets them in the box and he just gets ahead of guys, gets them off balance.

"It allows us to get in the dugout, put up a couple of runs and he gets right back out there and does it again."

Adam Lind picked up two RBIs, and Ryan Goins went 1 for 4 to extend his hit streak to seven games. The 25-year-old Goins is now 11 for 26, with a hit in each of his seven games since being called up from the triple-A Buffalo Bisons last Friday.

Goins coming up big

Goins' defence also came up big for the Blue Jays as the rookie dove for a sharply hit single and fired the ball to first base for the final out of the game.

"He's doing a terrific job, he really is," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "There's no panic in the kid. As we said early on ... He carries himself like he belongs here. And things happening on the field show you that, the results are there."

Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer each recorded two hits for the Royals (69-65), and Ervin Santana (8-8) pitched seven innings, giving up three runs, two earned, on four hits. Santana racked up six strikeouts and walked two batters.

Brett Cecil allowed two runs in the eighth inning for Toronto (61-74) before being replaced by Sergio Santos, who forced two ground outs to get out of the inning.

Casey Janssen gave up singles to Mike Moustakas and Jarrod Dyson in the top of the ninth, but picked up his 25th save of the season.

The Jays' victory snaps Kansas City's five-game winning streak.

"You don't ever want to lose at this time of year but it was a good game," said Royals manager Ned Yost. "We fought to the end, it just didn't happen."

Early jump

Lind put the Blue Jays on the board early, hitting a two-RBI single in the bottom of the first inning to score Goins and Edwin Encarnacion.

In the fifth, Anthony Gose smacked a lead-off triple to centre field, losing his helmet along the basepaths before trotting into third base standing up. Goins picked up his second major-league RBI to extend the Jays' lead to 3-0 with a single that scored his former Bisons teammate.

Former Blue Jay Emilio Bonifacio beat out an infield single and stole second in the first inning to bring his stolen base total with the Royals to nine in nine attempts. The second baseman — returning to Toronto for the first time since being traded to Kansas City two weeks ago — was booed by the Rogers Centre crowd before each of his at-bats.

Bonifacio was also charged with an error.

The Royals threatened in the top of the fourth when Buehrle walked Salvador Perez on four pitches, and gave up a double to Moustakas. But the 34-year-old lefty recovered, striking out Justin Maxwell to end the threat.

It wasn't until Buehrle left the game that the Royals could inflict some damage.

Gordon hit an RBI single off Cecil in the eighth to score Alcides Escobar and put Kansas City on the board, and Eric Hosmer followed with a single of his own to bring the Royals within one run.

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Russell: Canada's sliding beasts bulk up for Sochi

In a sport of motorcycle helmets, spiked shoes and grunts of extreme exertion, Canadian sliders are intensifying their training in the run up to the Sochi Olympics.

On a brilliant, late summer day in the Stampede City of Calgary, they are hard at work in a deep, dark place.

Inside one of the myriad buildings of the impressive new WINSPORT facility on the grounds of Canada Olympic Park, the most eclectic group of athletes one might ever encounter toils menacingly on a frozen runway.

They are massive people with hulking shoulders, bulging calves and impressive rear ends (gluteus maximus muscles) to die for. 

They count themselves as football and rugby players.  Some have been collegiate track stars and others alpine skiers. There's a former ballerina in their ranks.  Sarah Reid won a skeleton bronze medal at the World Championships in St. Moritz last season.  She's short when it comes to stature but imposing nonetheless. She carries her sled around in a pink pillowcase her mother made with a hundred images of skulls tattooed on one side.

There's even a wild-eyed, Australian-born cricketer named Chris Spring who bounds constantly around and every once in a while explodes from his crouch to bang a wall beside an equally aggressive teammate.

These are the monsters in the Ice House.

Fighting for Sochi spots

Canadian sliders are in the midst of the dog days of their training in the run up to the Sochi Olympics which are approaching with a furious momentum.  It serves to heighten the tension in this ultra-competitive environment where motorcycle helmets, spiked shoes and grunts of extreme exertion resonate.  

Although they've come from a variety of backgrounds to attempt to hitch a ride at the Olympics, these athletes are expected to produce medals in less than six months time, most notably in the sport of bobsleigh. Canada has the potential to qualify eight sleds for Sochi and while the pilots have, for the most part, been identified, the brakemen or workers will have to fight tooth and nail for a spot on the roster.

"You gonna try pushing one?"  Emily Baadsvik of St. Stephen, N.B., hustles by.  "We've got an extra helmet and spikes!"

Baadsvik, like the other women in camp, is all business.  She knows that Heather Moyse, who rode to gold with Kaillie Humphries at the Vancouver Olympics, is back from injury, the Rugby Sevens World Cup, and a flirtation with track cycling, determined to reclaim her place in Canada 1.   It means Humphries' current partner, Chelsea Valois, Baadsvik and Kate O'Brien will themselves be challenged mightily.

Good friends and bitter rivals is the relationship that exists here.

As for Humphries, once a technical skier and now the current star of international sliding as well as the reigning World champion, there's not much room for sentimentality or sensitivity in a gig like this.

"You have to move mass and push things," she shrugs.  "Bobsleigh is definitely not the most 'princessy' of sports.  Don't get me wrong, I love going shopping and getting my nails done but I also love to compete and I don't mind getting beat up in a sled."

Aging 'King' has still got it

On the men's side, the man they call "King" is back. 

Lascelles Brown is approaching his 39th birthday but is in impressive physical condition and insists he has not lost a step.  Brown won Olympic silver in the two-man competition with Pierre Lueders in 2006 and then was part of the crew that helped pilot Lyndon Rush claim four-man bronze in Vancouver.  He subsequently spent two years competing for Monaco before returning to the Canadian fold.

"You have some monsters out there," grins Brown, while leaning forward for emphasis.  "Bobsleigh can be seen as an athletes' graveyard but I say when you come to this sport you've got to step it up."

The beneficiary of the battle for seats in his sled will be the man who drives, Lyndon Rush of Humboldt, SASK.   A former university football standout, Rush has enjoyed recent success with Jesse Lumsden, once an NFL and CFL running back as well as the Hec Creighton winner as Canada's university grid iron player of the year. 

Now Lumsden and Brown will vie for the position behind him in Sochi while Rush licks his chops at the competitive environment bobsleigh creates. 

"I've loved learning about my craft all these years," Rush figures.  "But there's nothing like four angry men pushing a sled at mach schnell!"

Mach schnell when translated from German into English means, look lively or step it up.  As Lascelles Brown says, there's no room for passengers on the road to the Olympics.

A common goal

Meantime, the competition in the Ice House continues.  This menagerie of sports men and women push, sprint, haul around the gigantic equipment and even sweep the track clean.  Every once in awhile one of them darts out to the parking lot where a single massage table has been set up and the therapist tries to knead the kinks out.

After her furious trip down the track pilot Jenny Ciochetti takes a long swig from a bottle filled with disgusting, fluorescent, pink fluid.  "Branch chain amino acids," Ciochetti explains.  "Sometimes I blend in a few green veggies and it tastes really nasty."

The Aussie, Chris Spring chuckles as he walks by Ciochetti.  He once raced a kangaroo over 100 metres back home near Brisbane and loved playing rugby league before becoming a citizen of this country on July 1st of this year.

"What I love about this sport is that we all bring our diverse backgrounds together to work towards a common goal," he offers.

Quite clearly Spring, like the other denizens of the Icehouse, is bent on surviving this field of play to contend for gold in Canadian colours in Russia come February.

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Wharnsby: Canadian hockey women to get Sochi preview

From Calgary to Toronto to Moscow and finally to Sochi, this country's top women hockey players will make the long trek on Sunday to the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics for 11 days of training.

CALGARY - The Canadian national women's team is about to embark on a road trip.

From Calgary to Toronto to Moscow and finally to Sochi, this country's top women hockey players will make the long trek on Sunday to the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics for 11 days of training.

This excursion will not only give the Canadian women's team a chance to become accustomed to the surroundings in Sochi, the Canadian players will test themselves in two games against a Russian team that won a bronze medal at the world championship in Ottawa last spring.

"I think Russia will be a different environment than any other games we've participated in before, said veteran Hayley Wickenheiser, who turned 35 earlier this month. "There is the language, everything, even the food. It's just to give everyone a sense on what to expect when we get there for the Olympics. It sets us at a comfort level in terms of what to bring the next time we go."

Packed schedule

After a summer boot camp, the Canadian women recently assembled in Calgary to begin the team's centralized camp that will see them prepare together for five-plus months for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

They will play more than 50 exhibition games before returning to Sochi in February. The team's ambitious schedule will be highlighted by the Four Nations Cup in Lake Placid, N.Y. in November. There also will be a series of games against their chief rival from the United Sates and about 30 games against teams from Alberta's AAA midget boys league.

"The lead up, for me, is always exciting," Wickenheiser said. "It's never dull or boring. There always are new challenges and new things that happen."

The Canadian women's roster currently has 27 players and that number has to be trimmed to 21 by late December.

While the roster still contains 13 gold medalists from the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and 22 players from the world championship team that lost in the final to the United States in April, there are five newcomers still with the team.

• Vicki Bendus, forward (Wasaga Beach, Ont.) 24
• Mélodie Daoust, forward (Valleyfield, Que.) 21
• Jenelle Kohanchuk, forward (Winnipeg, Man.) 22
• Brigette Lacquette, defence (Waterhen, Man.) 20
• Tara Watchorn, defence (Newcastle, Ont.) 23

Young energy

Wickenheiser, who revealed this week she's in the process of applying to medical school, Jayna Hefford, 36, and Caroline Ouellette, 34, are the only players who remain from the three gold-medal Olympic teams in 2002, 2006 and 2010.

Hefford agreed that the young talent has pushed her and made her a much better player from here early days in the national team program in the mid-1990s.

"They bring the energy and they bring the deer-in-the-headlights sort of thing," Hefford said. "It's fun to watch them and listen to their comments. At the same time, you have to remind them that this is a long haul and not a sprint. Some days are going to be more difficult than others."

"To see some of these players to be able to do what they can at age 18, it's amazing. They do way more than what I was able to do when I was 18. It pushes myself and some of the older players. You have to get better. If I was just happy to be here, I wouldn't be here."

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How Canadian athletes fund their Olympic dreams

From knitted toques to personalized cookbooks, Canadian athletes are getting creative with different ways to fund their Olympic dreams.

CBC News sports reporter Peter Armstrong finds out from Alpine skier Larisa Yurkiw, biathlete Megan Imrie, and bobsledder David Bissett that it takes more than just training to make it to the Winter Games.

Watch the video above for the full story.

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Travis Lulay vaults Lions past Tiger-Cats

Travis Lulay took a conversation topic away from his critics Friday night.

For the first time this season, Lulay threw for more than 300 yards in a game as the B.C. Lions beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 29-26 at B.C. Place Stadium. More importantly, he completed three touchdown passes — including one for 80 yards to Emmanuel Arceneaux — and ran for another TD himself.

Lulay had come under fire because he had not managed to hurdle the 300 barrier.

"Honestly, I feel much better about the win than I do about 300 yards," said Lulay, who completed 26-of-36 passes for 359 yards.

'Honestly, I feel much better about the win than I do about 300 yards.'— Lions QB Travis Lulay after throwing for 359 yards

"The thing that's nice is that now we can stop talking about it, hopefully, a little bit."

He excelled after struggling against Montreal's blitz last week as the Alouettes pulled off a stunning comeback win. Lulay was only sacked once after he was downed five times in Montreal.

"We played much better," said Lulay, praising his offensive line for making him feel more comfortable. "We played much more confident, and we talked about playing more confident, playing faster, and the execution followed.

"Even early, I threw a couple balls a little high that a couple guys didn't handle, and we settled in and just kept playing. We overcame some of those little things. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. But when you're playing fast, and you're executing a little better, you're giving yourself more opportunities to make plays."

The B.C. quarterback surpassed 300 yards for the 14th time in his career, as the Lions improved to 6-3 at the season's halfway point.

"We're still in position to do what we want to do into the second half of the season," said Lulay, adding the Lions can head into the stretch drive with some momentum.

Streak over

Hamilton (4-5) saw its win streak end at three games. The Ticats were denied their first four-game win streak since 2010. It would have been only their second four-game victory run since 1998.

"We have to have to get better, obviously," said Hamilton receiver Greg Ellingson, who pulled in a two yard touchdown pass with 25 seconds left in the game to give the Lions a scare. "When you don't come out with the win, you have to improve on things, and that's what we're going to do."

After some early B.C. offensive miscues that included a wide-open Arceneaux dropping a long-bomb attempt, Lulay found the big receiver on the spectacular 80-yard touchdown that put the Lions ahead 14-7 in the second quarter and gave them the lead for good. Hamilton linebacker Courtney Greene — the last man back after defensive backs blitzed — clipped Arceneaux's heels as he ran along the sidelines.

"We just found the will," said Arceneaux. "We came in here with the mindset that this was a must-win, like every game is, and we just competed to the end. It shouldn't have been that close, but things happen, and we're going to ride with the victory."

Arceneaux was glad to make the TD catch after his earlier drop. Lulay's original plan was to keep the ball himself or use the option of a pitchout or short pass. But he unloaded a deep ball on a blitz after Arceneaux waved his arm to signal his availability.

"It wasn't an all-round blitz, but they did have a guy come around," said Lulay. "I knew I was going to take a hit, but I just had to get it out there and give (Arceneaux) a chance."

Shawn Gore and Marco Iannuzzi also scored touchdowns for B.C., while kicker Paul McCallum supplied their other points on four converts and a single off a missed field goal.

Impressive performance

Lulay completed 26-of-36 passes for 359 yards. He excelled after struggling against Montreal's blitz last week as the Alouettes pulled off a stunning comeback win.

Hamilton tried to unleash its blitz often, too, but the Lions QB countered with mid-range slant passes and the long-bomb touchdown to Arceneaux that gave the Lions an insurmountable lead in the second quarter.

After the Ticats pulled within three points, to trail 22-19, Lulay ran for what proved to be a winning two-yard touchdown with six minutes left in the game before Hamilton scored in the final minute.

Hamilton quarterback Henry Burris threw two touchdown passes, with his first going to Bakari Grant before Ellingson's late heroics. Burris matched Lulay's 36 pass attempts, completing 29 for 352 yards.

Backup quarterback Dan Lefevour ran for Hamilton's other TD. A Luca Congi field goal and safety conceded by B.C., accounted for the rest of the Ticat scoring.

But the game was all about passing as Lulay and Burris waged a quarterbacking battle, when their offences weren't struggling. The clubs only attempted one field goal and punted a combined 12 times.

When B.C.'s offence stalled, its defence came up big. The Lions recorded five QB sacks, with one by Keron Williams resulting in a forced fumble that made Hamilton go for its field goal late in the game rather than a touchdown during an ill-fated late rally.

"It's never close enough when you're on the other side of it," said Ellingson. "It doesn't matter whether you lose by one point or 10 or 50. A loss is a loss and we have to get better from here."

The Lions and Ticats conclude their home-and-home series next weekend in the Tabbies' temporary home in Guelph, Ont.

Notes: The Lions received a scare late in the second quarter as Lulay was hit along the sidelines by Simoni Lawrence on an incomplete pass that led to a punt. Lulay limped slightly as he went off and was attended by trainers but showed no ill effects afterward.

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Olympic-bound Sidney Crosby: Fit as he's ever been

Focused on improving his goal scoring and defensive play, Sidney Crosby hopes to rebound from a disappointing NHL playoffs with a big season that he wants to include another Stanley Cup run and Olympic gold medal.

CALGARY -- Sidney Crosby hopes to rise again.

This isn't to suggest that he has fallen to any deep depths -- say, like the Colorado Avalanche did last season -- but hockey fans simply haven't seen Sid the Kid on top of the world for a while. Almost four years, in fact.

Back then Crosby was on quite a roll. Even though he suffered a knee injury in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup final, the Pittsburgh Penguins triumphed, giving Crosby his first (and still only) NHL championship. Eight-and-a-half months later, he converted a pass from Jarome Iginla to send Canadians into the streets to revel in an Olympic gold medal.

But since the golden goal in Vancouver, Crosby has endured some challenging times. There were the concussion-related problems that snatched 107 regular-season and playoff games from his career. There were the earlier-than-expected playoff exits in 2010, 2011 (he watched that post-season from the press box) and 2012.

Then, there was last spring. The Penguins loaded up with talent before the trade deadline. They snuck past the New York Islanders in the first round. They dominated the Ottawa Senators in the next. But then they were swept in the Eastern final by the Boston Bruins.

That loss stung. It took Crosby weeks to get over the setback. He didn't score in the series. He didn't set up a goal. He felt he could have done more to help the Penguins prevail.

"Pretty much until I started to work out again," Crosby said at the Canadian Olympic team's orientation camp in Calgary this week, when asked how long the defeat lingered. "It was a few weeks. That one was probably one of the longer ones to get over. The last time I felt like that was the year we lost to Detroit in the [2008] final. That sting stuck with me because we were so close.

"But having the team we had and getting swept, that hurt. It wasn't a 4-0 series by means of how close the games were and the way they went, but they still beat us 4-0 and that's not something you're real happy with or accept. It definitely took a while to get over."

Training days

The 26-year-old Crosby gets over these devastating disappointments by sweating more in the summer. He usually chooses an aspect of his game he wants to further develop and works on that skill.

Not this summer. The two areas Crosby wants to focus on when the NHL season begins are burying more of his offensive opportunities and playing better defence.

"Looking back to the playoffs, you realize as you go deeper and deeper, things get tighter and tighter," Crosby said. "The fact of executing and making sure you're taking advantage of your chances. If you look at the amount of chances you're going to get at that point in the playoffs, you're really looking at two to three quality chances maybe. That's a pretty good night. You have to make sure you take advantage of those.

"I look back at the chances I had in that series and I'm disappointed I wasn't able to convert. Sure, [Bruins goalie Tuukka] Rask played great, but as a forward you always want to find a way to beat the goalie and not surrender the fact that he beat you.

"That and defensively, too. Knowing that you're going to be part of all these close games, you want to be good defensively. I have kept that in mind all summer and that's something I want to focus on."

Crosby looks cut. You can tell that, after two months of hard work in the gym and on the ice, he's as fit as he's ever been.

He began his off-season regimen on Canada Day weekend with his fitness guru Andy O'Brien and fellow Cole Harbour, N.S., native Nathan MacKinnon, who is about to embark on his rookie season with the Avalanche. Some holiday weekend. They ran the sand dunes of Brackley Beach on Prince Edward Island.

Then it was more training back home in the Halifax area. MacKinnon often rode shotgun with No. 87. Others, like Jason Spezza, Matt Duchene, John Tavares, Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Daniel Cleary and Shawn Horcoff joined in at times, too.

There was more training time in California. There will be another intense session in Vail, Colo., before he reports for the Penguins' training camp in two weeks.

Don't look back

Crosby wants to be as prepared as he can for another long season with the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February and, hopefully, an even deeper trip into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But how will he approach this season with an Olympics also to worry about?

"You approach the game in the same day-to-day manner the way you normally would," he said. "But [the Olympics] will be in the back of your mind. It will make you focus because you have to make sure your game is where it needs to be."

Surprisingly, Crosby said that he doesn't think much about his gold-winning goal in Vancouver. Sure, he's reminded about it often. But he's driven to create more memories in Russia.

He likens a return to the Olympics four years later to an individual athlete wanting to post a personal best when it matters most.

"It's something I'm reminded of quite often, running into Canadians," Crosby said. "They like to tell me where they were and how they celebrated. It's not something I need to remind myself of. That was a special moment that isn't going anywhere. It happened and I have great memories from it and I feel really lucky that I was part of it.

"Every kid grows up dreaming of being in that moment and having that opportunity. To be able to say I did that and to be part of that team that won in Canada, I know that was difficult, but I just can't think that I'm done.

"This biggest thing for me is to know that I have another opportunity. In 2010, we necessarily didn't know if we would be in this Olympics, it wasn't a for-sure thing. Knowing it's going to be in Russia and knowing how proud they are in terms of a hockey nation, knowing that it will be even tougher than Vancouver, knowing that everyone will want to beat us, it's another opportunity.

"I don't want to get caught looking into the past."

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5 Questions: Twins' Andrew Albers living major league dream

Andrew Albers wasn't close to throwing away his lifetime dream after the San Diego Padres released him at 2010 spring training or when the Los Angeles Angels, Milwaukee and Colorado followed suit a year later.

The thought of never throwing a pitch for a major league team came in 2009 after the Canadian hurler had Tommy John surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow.

"It got to the point where I didn't even care if I could ever throw again," Albers said in a recent interview. "I just wanted to move my arm so I could go about daily life and do things with my left arm that I could do before [the surgery]."

Albers struggled physically and mentally for the first four-and-a-half months of his expected 12-to-18-month recovery, sweating it out in the training room trying to get his elbow to extend. Many times he would work for 20 minutes to extend it and once he could bend the elbow, Albers would lose the extension and saw little progress after repeated attempts.

"For me, that was probably the most trying time," said the native of North Battleford, Sask. "I was fortunate enough to be able to go in for a second surgery and [doctors] cleaned up some scar tissue. From there, I was able to get the majority of my range of motion back and was even able to throw again."

Drafted by San Diego in the 10th round of the 2008 amateur draft, the 27-year-old Albers auditioned for the Minnesota Twins two years ago, driving his 2004 maroon Buick LeSabre 32 hours from Phoenix to Fort Myers, Fla., and signed on March 10, 2011.

That season, Albers appeared in 22 games (two starts) in the Florida State League for Fort Myers, posting a 1.55 earned-run average for the Twins' Class-A Advanced affiliate. He later earned a promotion to double-A New Britain of the Eastern League, going 4-1 with a 2.91 ERA in 13 games (five starts).

Albers went 4-3 with a 3.75 ERA in 17 starts with New Britain last season and opened the 2013 campaign at triple-A Rochester, where he fashioned an 11-5 mark, 2.86 ERA and led the International League in complete games (three) and strikeouts (116 in 132 1/3 innings pitched) at the time of his major league promotion on Aug. 3.

The six-foot-one, 195-pound southpaw hasn't disappointed at the major league level either. On Wednesday, Albers limited Kansas City to two earned runs over seven strong innings in a 8-1 loss, throwing 72 of his 99 pitches for strikes and inducing 11 ground balls. The 2-2 Albers hasn't won in three starts but boasts a 2.92 ERA for the 57-74 Twins.

Albers also talked to CBCSports.ca about the ups and downs of his major league pursuit, facing 2012 Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera and why he works quickly and from the stretch as a starting pitcher.

1. Describe the learning experiences of being released by four major league teams in a calendar year and then working your way back playing independent ball with the Quebec Capitales?

Albers: Sometimes you wonder if this is what you're meant to be doing. You learn that faith gets you through a lot of things. For me, [it was] having faith in God and believing that there's a plan for me and he's going to put me where he wants me to be. I've had my ups and downs just like a lot of guys that make it to this level. When things are stacked against you is when it's time to find out what you're made of, dig deep and see what kind of person you are.

I've certainly learned a lot about myself along the way and it's helped me get to where I'm at today. It's been a neat journey over the last three, four years and now that it's culminated in making it [to the majors] I wouldn't trade it for anything.

2. You held Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera hitless in three at-bats with a strikeout on Aug. 22. What is it like to face a player who is threatening to become the first player in major league history to win back-to-back Triple Crowns as the leader in batting average, home runs and RBIs in the American League?

He's one of the best in the business, if not the best in the business right now [with a .357 average, 43 home runs, 130 RBIs). But you can't let that get in your head because you're going to feel the pressure, tense up and that's how you make mistakes. Fortunately the first time he came up there was nobody on base so I was able to be aggressive with him and got strike one. It was all about being aggressive and getting ahead in the count. The more he sees you, the better chance he has of hitting something solid. He put a pretty good swing on the ball that at-bat but he found a glove.

Second time up was a bigger situation but I made some good pitches to him that he fouled off. In the end, he swung through [a pitch] and missed it and I was able to get him. It was all about being aggressive and getting ahead in the count. The more he sees you, the better chance he has of hitting something solid.

3. You've already set a few Twins records, including eight-plus shutout innings in your major league debut and 17 1/3 shutout innings to start your MLB career. What has been your "Wow" moment through five starts?

Really, it was just getting up here [to the major leagues]. You come out and realize it's the same game. You're playing with a little bit better players and against little bit better players. The complete-game shutout was pretty special. Getting to finish [the game] in your home debut in front of the hometown fans is pretty special and that's something I'll never forget. That would have been my "wow" moment on the field.

4. There has been constant talk about the fact your pitches are not overpowering, even though several pitchers have carved out successful major league careers as soft-tossing hurlers, including Jamie Moyer and current Toronto Blue Jays left-hander Mark Buehrle. How bothered are you that people continue to stress the speed of your pitches rather than your strengths?

It's kind of where we're at in the game today. But there's more than one way to get a guy out. I would love to have 95 [miles per hour] in my back pocket but it's not something I can do so I have to find different ways to the job done.

It [being a soft-tossing pitcher] doesn't mean I can't have success. Maybe I don't have as much margin for error but there's something [in my arsenal] that's been working and I've been able to be successful with.

5. You work quickly on the mound and pitch from the stretch. When did you start this approach and what were the reasons?

It's something that was taught in college. It was all about pace: get on the mound and throw and keep the defence in the game. Obviously for me, my defence is going to play a huge role because I'm not going to strike out twenty guys in a game. I need my defence to be involved and mentally [engaged].

Pitching from the stretch stems from college as well. I started [as] a freshman and junior in college and came out of the bullpen as a sophomore and senior. My senior year I came in during a lot of different situations and rarely in a fresh inning, so I was always pitching out of the stretch.

In my [second] year with the Twins, I wasn't sure what the plans were for me so I didn't bother working on a windup. I [eventually] gave it a shot and about a month into the season leadoff hitters were hitting about .400 off me so I figured this was kind of pointless and I might just as well go from the stretch.

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Charles Hamelin headlines Olympic short-track team

Two-time Olympic champion Charles Hamelin will lead another stacked Canadian short-track speedskating team to the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

A powerful 10-member squad was nominated to the Canadian Olympic team by the sport's national governing body on Thursday in Montreal, becoming the first Canadian athletes to be selected for Sochi.

The list also includes Olympic relay gold medallist Olivier Jean and two-time silver medallist Marianne St-Gelais.

"Speed Skating Canada is very proud to be the first national sport federation to nominate our short-track athletes contending for a spot on Canada's Olympic team," said Marie Claire Rouleau, president of Speed Skating Canada. "I know that our athletes, coaches and support team are looking forward to competing in Sochi and I am sure that their exceptional performances leading up to the Games will prepare them well to lead our Olympic team to podium success."

Hamelin, who will once again be expected to guide the national team to Olympic glory, has been the clear star for the last several years. A Canadian staple since 2005, Hamelin earned a silver medal in the men's 5,000-metre relay at the 2006 Turin Olympics. The Levis, Que., native then won gold in the 500m — his signature competition — at the Vancouver Games four years later, and also led the men's 5,000m relay team to the top of the podium.

Hamelin has been even more dominant at world championships, reaching the podium 25 times in his career while winning eight gold medals during an eight-year stretch.

The 29-year-old did receive a scare at the Canadian trials in Montreal earlier this month. Hamelin was cruising through his events until a collision into the wall with two competitors during a men's 1,000m semifinal stretched a ligament in his left ankle. But he expects to be ready for the upcoming season leading into Sochi.

Hamelin also suffered through several nagging injuries in the 2012 season. Still, he's considered a legitimate medal threat in the 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m and 5,000m relay.

"This [Canadian Olympic] jacket also means that our efforts are starting now to pay off," Hamelin told reporters. "You can be assured that my teammates and I will wear it with a lot of pride and we'll do everything in our power to make sure that the country will be well represented in Sochi with the best performance we can do."

Jean overcomes sabotage

Jean has had a unique journey to Sochi since winning gold as part of the men's 5,000m relay team in Vancouver.

The 29-year-old Lachenaie, Que., native has won four world championship gold medals, including a 500m win over teammate Hamelin at the 2012 event in Shanghai.

But his winning ways were interrupted by a bizarre incident that took place at the 2011 world championships in Warsaw, where Jean was the victim of sabotage.

Under the instructions of then U.S. coach Jae Su Chun, skater Simon Cho admitted that he tampered with Jean's skates, forcing the Canadian team to settle for bronze. Cho, an Olympic medallist, received a two-year ban from the International Skating Union on Sunday and will miss the Sochi Games.

St-Gelais, Maltais to lead women's team

The women's team will be led by St-Gelais and Valerie Maltais.

St-Gelais earned silver medals in the women's 500m and the 3,000m relay team in Vancouver. The Roberval, Que., skater also shared one of the more memorable moments of the 2010 Games when she and boyfriend Hamelin embraced in a kiss following his 500 gold-medal win.

Over the last four years, St-Gelais has consistently been one of the best women short-track skaters, claiming seven world championship medals, including four silvers.

Maltais, from La Baie, Que., is one of the youngest members of the national team. But the 23-year-old has already made a huge impact on the international scene, specifically at the 2012 world championships in Shanghai.

It was in China where she dominated the field in the 3,000m superfinal en route to a gold medal. Maltais also claimed bronze in a photo finish in the 1,000m event. Her efforts eventually garnered a silver medal in the event's overall standings.

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Milos Raonic last Canadian left at U.S. Open

Milos Raonic is the lone Canadian left in singles at the U.S. Open.

Raonic advanced to the third round with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Spain's Pablo Andujar on Thursday.

The 10th-seeded Thornhill, Ont., native fired a modest nine aces, with Andujar saving match points in the last two games. Raonic served it out a game later to take the win on his sixth winning opportunity with a deep forehand to the corner after just over two hours.

The 22-year-old is quietly looking ahead to what he hopes will be continual improvement at the final major of the season.

"I'm playing really well. I created a lot of opportunities for myself, especially on his serve," said Raonic. "But I can serve better, so that gives me a day to work on it. It gives me a lot of confidence and a lot of belief in myself."

Raonic will next face Feliciano Lopez after the Spaniard defeated American Bradley Klahn 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 7-5. Raonic's best results at a major were a pair of fourth-round exits at the Australian Open and in New York in 2011.

Earlier in the men's side, Spain's Tommy Robredo defeated Frank Dancevic of Niagara Falls, Ont., 6-4, 6-4, 6-1.

There were no survivors for Canada on the women's side. Montreal's Eugenie Bouchard fought off four match points before losing 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 to eighth-seeded Angelique Kerber.

Nadal keeps rolling

Earlier on the men's side, Rafael Nadal made quick work of his second-round opponent, taking the final 12 games in his 6-2, 6-1, 6-0 victory over qualifier Rogerio Dutra Silva.

Second-seeded Nadal improved to 17-0 on hard courts this year. He has lost only 11 games over his first two matches of the tournament.

The Brazilian fought Nadal for a brief time and even had a break point in the second game of the second set.

But Nadal saved the break point, and closed out the first of the dozen straight games to close the match and stay on course for a quarterfinal meeting with long-time foe Roger Federer.

Federer breezes into 3rd round

Five-time U.S. Open champion Federer posted a 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Argentina's Carlos Berloq in 95 minutes.

Federer is seeded seventh at Flushing Meadows, his worst since 2002. But he hasn't dropped a set through two victories.

"It's one of those matches I expect myself to win if possible in straight sets and gain confidence in the process," Federer said. "All those things happened, so, yeah, I'm pleased about it."

The 48th-ranked Berlocq has never made it past the second round at a Grand Slam event and is 0-17 against top-10 opponents

Fourth-seeded David Ferrer overcame a shaky second-set tiebreaker to defeat fellow Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-2.

In doubles, the Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, opened their quest to complete the calendar Grand Slam with a 7-6 (1), 6-2 win over Federico Delbonis and Leonardo Mayer of Argentina.

Isner gets past Monfils

John Isner heard U.S. Open fans surprisingly supporting his French opponent, Gael Monfils. Isner, the highest-ranked American man, felt pain in his upper right leg. And, maybe worst of all, Isner saw his lead slipping away.

Overcoming it all, the 13th-seeded Isner held on to beat the 39th-ranked Monfils 7-5, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (4) to reach the third round for the fifth consecutive year.

From late in the third set, spectators at Louis Armstrong Stadium occasionally chanted "Let's go, Monfils!" or loudly sang his last name during breaks between points. They rose to their feet and raucously saluted Monfils' best shots. They applauded faults and other errors by Isner.

"It was surprising, actually," Monfils said. "It was surprising — but it was good."

Certainly was an unusual display: plenty of vigorous cheering for a non-American while he played an American at the country's most important tennis tournament. Maybe, as Monfils guessed afterward, the ticket-holders simply wanted more bang for their buck, instead of a three-set, open-and-shut affair. Or maybe, as Isner surmised, Monfils' style just won them over.

"He's a very fun-loving guy, and he gets cheered on wherever he goes, not just in France. He's one of the most exciting tennis players in the world, hands down," Isner said. "He's been fighting a bunch of injuries, so it's good to see him back healthy."

Querrey upset by Mannarino

No. 26-seeded Sam Querrey was upset in his second-round match.

Adrian Mannarino beat the American 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 6-4. The 63rd-ranked Frenchman reached the fourth round at Wimbledon this year.

Querrey's best run at Flushing Meadows was making the fourth round in 2008 and '10. He advanced to the third round at the Australian and French Opens this year.

There were only three breaks of serve in the match, but Mannarino got one at 5-4 in the fourth set to clinch the victory.

Querrey had 25 aces but seven double-faults. The players combined for 117 winners and 106 unforced errors.

With files from The Associated Press

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Russell: Canada's sliding beasts bulk up for Sochi

In a sport of motorcycle helmets, spiked shoes and grunts of extreme exertion, Canadian sliders are intensifying their training in the run up to the Sochi Olympics.

On a brilliant, late summer day in the Stampede City of Calgary, they are hard at work in a deep, dark place.

Inside one of the myriad buildings of the impressive new WINSPORT facility on the grounds of Canada Olympic Park, the most eclectic group of athletes one might ever encounter toils menacingly on a frozen runway.

They are massive people with hulking shoulders, bulging calves and impressive rear ends (gluteus maximus muscles) to die for. 

They count themselves as football and rugby players.  Some have been collegiate track stars and others alpine skiers. There's a former ballerina in their ranks.  Sarah Reid won a skeleton bronze medal at the World Championships in St. Moritz last season.  She's short when it comes to stature but imposing nonetheless. She carries her sled around in a pink pillowcase her mother made with a hundred images of skulls tattooed on one side.

There's even a wild-eyed, Australian-born cricketer named Chris Spring who bounds constantly around and every once in a while explodes from his crouch to bang a wall beside an equally aggressive teammate.

These are the monsters in the Ice House.

Fighting for Sochi spots

Canadian sliders are in the midst of the dog days of their training in the run up to the Sochi Olympics which are approaching with a furious momentum.  It serves to heighten the tension in this ultra-competitive environment where motorcycle helmets, spiked shoes and grunts of extreme exertion resonate.  

Although they've come from a variety of backgrounds to attempt to hitch a ride at the Olympics, these athletes are expected to produce medals in less than six months time, most notably in the sport of bobsleigh. Canada has the potential to qualify eight sleds for Sochi and while the pilots have, for the most part, been identified, the brakemen or workers will have to fight tooth and nail for a spot on the roster.

"You gonna try pushing one?"  Emily Baadsvik of St. Stephen, N.B., hustles by.  "We've got an extra helmet and spikes!"

Baadsvik, like the other women in camp, is all business.  She knows that Heather Moyse, who rode to gold with Kaillie Humphries at the Vancouver Olympics, is back from injury, the Rugby Sevens World Cup, and a flirtation with track cycling, determined to reclaim her place in Canada 1.   It means Humphries' current partner, Chelsea Valois, Baadsvik and Kate O'Brien will themselves be challenged mightily.

Good friends and bitter rivals is the relationship that exists here.

As for Humphries, once a technical skier and now the current star of international sliding as well as the reigning World champion, there's not much room for sentimentality or sensitivity in a gig like this.

"You have to move mass and push things," she shrugs.  "Bobsleigh is definitely not the most 'princessy' of sports.  Don't get me wrong, I love going shopping and getting my nails done but I also love to compete and I don't mind getting beat up in a sled."

Aging 'King' has still got it

On the men's side, the man they call "King" is back. 

Lascelles Brown is approaching his 39th birthday but is in impressive physical condition and insists he has not lost a step.  Brown won Olympic silver in the two-man competition with Pierre Lueders in 2006 and then was part of the crew that helped pilot Lyndon Rush claim four-man bronze in Vancouver.  He subsequently spent two years competing for Monaco before returning to the Canadian fold.

"You have some monsters out there," grins Brown, while leaning forward for emphasis.  "Bobsleigh can be seen as an athletes' graveyard but I say when you come to this sport you've got to step it up."

The beneficiary of the battle for seats in his sled will be the man who drives, Lyndon Rush of Humboldt, SASK.   A former university football standout, Rush has enjoyed recent success with Jesse Lumsden, once an NFL and CFL running back as well as the Hec Creighton winner as Canada's university grid iron player of the year. 

Now Lumsden and Brown will vie for the position behind him in Sochi while Rush licks his chops at the competitive environment bobsleigh creates. 

"I've loved learning about my craft all these years," Rush figures.  "But there's nothing like four angry men pushing a sled at mach schnell!"

Mach schnell when translated from German into English means, look lively or step it up.  As Lascelles Brown says, there's no room for passengers on the road to the Olympics.

A common goal

Meantime, the competition in the Ice House continues.  This menagerie of sports men and women push, sprint, haul around the gigantic equipment and even sweep the track clean.  Every once in awhile one of them darts out to the parking lot where a single massage table has been set up and the therapist tries to knead the kinks out.

After her furious trip down the track pilot Jenny Ciochetti takes a long swig from a bottle filled with disgusting, fluorescent, pink fluid.  "Branch chain amino acids," Ciochetti explains.  "Sometimes I blend in a few green veggies and it tastes really nasty."

The Aussie, Chris Spring chuckles as he walks by Ciochetti.  He once raced a kangaroo over 100 metres back home near Brisbane and loved playing rugby league before becoming a citizen of this country on July 1st of this year.

"What I love about this sport is that we all bring our diverse backgrounds together to work towards a common goal," he offers.

Quite clearly Spring, like the other denizens of the Icehouse, is bent on surviving this field of play to contend for gold in Canadian colours in Russia come February.

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5 things we learned from Team Canada's Olympic camp

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NHLers can still play their way onto Canada's Olympic squad

Players left Canada's Olympic orientation camp in Calgary knowing the road to proving they belong in Sochi begins now.

Coach Mike Babcock wanted each player to know what it would take to make the team, but it's up to general manager Steve Yzerman and his staff to start evaluating once the regular season gets underway.

"The final scouting for the management group to put the final roster together begins immediately," Yzerman said.

That's a lot of pressure all around, when the expectation in Canada is nothing short of a gold medal. Team Canada's management group has a representative from every division — the Boston Bruins' Peter Chiarelli, the Detroit Red Wings' Ken Holland, the St. Louis Blues' Doug Armstrong and the Edmonton Oilers' Kevin Lowe — so the spotlight will be bright.

"I think it's going to be on your mind fairly often, whether you're being asked about it or you're playing against guys who were at the camp, it's going to come up," Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. "It's always in the back of your mind, but I think if you just focus on playing well for your own team and making sure you have a good first half, then everything kind of takes care of itself."

In the immediate future, players return to their preparations for training camp. Canada's coaches and front-office personnel have jobs to do as well, but they'll stay in touch regularly, mostly on conference calls.

"We'll arrange our schedule over the next week or so to get ready for the start of the regular season," Yzerman said Tuesday evening. "We'll get together as a group early November to narrow things down a little bit and talk about what we're seeing and make sure we're all in constant communication and get organized from November to mid-December and make our final decisions at that point."

Keeping a close eye

The focus will be on monitoring the 47 players invited to camp, even though anyone can work his way into the Olympic conversation with a strong enough start. Yzerman doesn't consider anyone who was in Calgary a "long shot."

"We'll keep an eye on everybody but focus on particular teams, particular games, particular players that we're deciding on," he said. "There was a few guys we don't feel the need to watch. But we know what they can do and they're going to be on this team, assuming they're healthy."

Yzerman estimated that, conservatively, there were eight or nine locks to make it. Crosby, Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews and defenceman Duncan Keith, Nashville Predators captain Shea Weber, Los Angeles Kings defenceman Drew Doughty, Tampa Bay Lightning centre Steven Stamkos, Boston Bruins centre Patrice Bergeron, New York Islanders centre John Tavares and New York Rangers winger Rick Nash seem to fit that bill.

Putting together the rest of the roster could be a painstaking process, considering Canada's depth. Weber wants no part of that.

"That's why I'm the player, there's too many tough decisions," he said. "You go down the list and everybody deserves the chance. That's why they're here. There's even guys that aren't here that probably will get a good look during the season. We're very fortunate in Canada to have a big selection, but definitely some tough choices."

Yzerman expects to have the roster figured out by mid-to-late December. The deadline for all countries to submit is Dec. 31.

Between now and then, plenty could change Team Canada's potential makeup.

"There's a lot of could-be's, but I think the first half of the year just has such an impact on who's on the team," Crosby said. "I'm sure there's some guys in mind, but there'll be guys who have standout first halves, and will make it tough not to be selected. So I think we're going to see here in the first half who really shows they want to be part of it."

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Olympic-bound Sidney Crosby: Fit as he's ever been

Focused on improving his goal scoring and defensive play, Sidney Crosby hopes to rebound from a disappointing NHL playoffs with a big season that he wants to include another Stanley Cup run and Olympic gold medal.

CALGARY -- Sidney Crosby hopes to rise again.

This isn't to suggest that he has fallen to any deep depths -- say, like the Colorado Avalanche did last season -- but hockey fans simply haven't seen Sid the Kid on top of the world for a while. Almost four years, in fact.

Back then Crosby was on quite a roll. Even though he suffered a knee injury in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup final, the Pittsburgh Penguins triumphed, giving Crosby his first (and still only) NHL championship. Eight-and-a-half months later, he converted a pass from Jarome Iginla to send Canadians into the streets to revel in an Olympic gold medal.

But since the golden goal in Vancouver, Crosby has endured some challenging times. There were the concussion-related problems that snatched 107 regular-season and playoff games from his career. There were the earlier-than-expected playoff exits in 2010, 2011 (he watched that post-season from the press box) and 2012.

Then, there was last spring. The Penguins loaded up with talent before the trade deadline. They snuck past the New York Islanders in the first round. They dominated the Ottawa Senators in the next. But then they were swept in the Eastern final by the Boston Bruins.

That loss stung. It took Crosby weeks to get over the setback. He didn't score in the series. He didn't set up a goal. He felt he could have done more to help the Penguins prevail.

"Pretty much until I started to work out again," Crosby said at the Canadian Olympic team's orientation camp in Calgary this week, when asked how long the defeat lingered. "It was a few weeks. That one was probably one of the longer ones to get over. The last time I felt like that was the year we lost to Detroit in the [2008] final. That sting stuck with me because we were so close.

"But having the team we had and getting swept, that hurt. It wasn't a 4-0 series by means of how close the games were and the way they went, but they still beat us 4-0 and that's not something you're real happy with or accept. It definitely took a while to get over."

Training days

The 26-year-old Crosby gets over these devastating disappointments by sweating more in the summer. He usually chooses an aspect of his game he wants to further develop and works on that skill.

Not this summer. The two areas Crosby wants to focus on when the NHL season begins are burying more of his offensive opportunities and playing better defence.

"Looking back to the playoffs, you realize as you go deeper and deeper, things get tighter and tighter," Crosby said. "The fact of executing and making sure you're taking advantage of your chances. If you look at the amount of chances you're going to get at that point in the playoffs, you're really looking at two to three quality chances maybe. That's a pretty good night. You have to make sure you take advantage of those.

"I look back at the chances I had in that series and I'm disappointed I wasn't able to convert. Sure, [Bruins goalie Tuukka] Rask played great, but as a forward you always want to find a way to beat the goalie and not surrender the fact that he beat you.

"That and defensively, too. Knowing that you're going to be part of all these close games, you want to be good defensively. I have kept that in mind all summer and that's something I want to focus on."

Crosby looks cut. You can tell that, after two months of hard work in the gym and on the ice, he's as fit as he's ever been.

He began his off-season regimen on Canada Day weekend with his fitness guru Andy O'Brien and fellow Cole Harbour, N.S., native Nathan MacKinnon, who is about to embark on his rookie season with the Avalanche. Some holiday weekend. They ran the sand dunes of Brackley Beach on Prince Edward Island.

Then it was more training back home in the Halifax area. MacKinnon often rode shotgun with No. 87. Others, like Jason Spezza, Matt Duchene, John Tavares, Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Daniel Cleary and Shawn Horcoff joined in at times, too.

There was more training time in California. There will be another intense session in Vail, Colo., before he reports for the Penguins' training camp in two weeks.

Don't look back

Crosby wants to be as prepared as he can for another long season with the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February and, hopefully, an even deeper trip into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But how will he approach this season with an Olympics also to worry about?

"You approach the game in the same day-to-day manner the way you normally would," he said. "But [the Olympics] will be in the back of your mind. It will make you focus because you have to make sure your game is where it needs to be."

Surprisingly, Crosby said that he doesn't think much about his gold-winning goal in Vancouver. Sure, he's reminded about it often. But he's driven to create more memories in Russia.

He likens a return to the Olympics four years later to an individual athlete wanting to post a personal best when it matters most.

"It's something I'm reminded of quite often, running into Canadians," Crosby said. "They like to tell me where they were and how they celebrated. It's not something I need to remind myself of. That was a special moment that isn't going anywhere. It happened and I have great memories from it and I feel really lucky that I was part of it.

"Every kid grows up dreaming of being in that moment and having that opportunity. To be able to say I did that and to be part of that team that won in Canada, I know that was difficult, but I just can't think that I'm done.

"This biggest thing for me is to know that I have another opportunity. In 2010, we necessarily didn't know if we would be in this Olympics, it wasn't a for-sure thing. Knowing it's going to be in Russia and knowing how proud they are in terms of a hockey nation, knowing that it will be even tougher than Vancouver, knowing that everyone will want to beat us, it's another opportunity.

"I don't want to get caught looking into the past."

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Kaya Turski's Olympic dream won't be derailed by injury

When Canadian freestyle skier Kaya Turski first learned she had torn the ACL in her left knee two weeks ago, the initial sick feeling running through her body was understandable.

The normal recovery time facing an elite athlete from such a serious injury takes about six to nine months.

That would've meant no Olympics for Turski, the 2013 world ski slopestyle champion and three-time X-Games title holder.

"It was obviously devastating when it happened," the 25-year-old Montreal native told CBCSports.ca. "A lot crossed my mind at that point, definitely. I thought about my career, [missing] the Olympics, my sponsors."

Turski, considered to be the gold medal favourite for the 2014 Sochi Olympics in February, suffered the injury while training with the national team in Mt. Hood, Ore.

The Canadian was working on a new move, an unnatural switch 720.

"It's the way that I don't usually spin and it's two full rotations while taking off backwards," she said. "You just kind of lose your air sense because it's a very foreign trick. That's what happened. I came around, I wasn't expecting to land at that point. I was just pretty lost in the air, so when I came around and hit the snow, my legs just weren't ready to catch me. And there was some torque involved so [my knee] let go."

But all is not lost.

While a regular ACL operation would likely have wiped out her Olympic dream, Turski underwent an alternative surgery on Monday and is expected back on the snow by November — or December at the very latest.

The procedure was performed in London, Ont., by the renowned Dr. Bob Litchfield, the surgeon for Canada's Alpine ski team.

Instead of taking a graft from the hamstring, patella tendon or a cadaver, Litchfield used a synthetic implant to repair the ACL, thus cutting the recovery time in half.

"A regular graft typically takes so long because it's a foreign tissue [and] it still needs to adapt to being in the body. It loses a lot of its mass, and then it kind of gains strength again throughout the rehab process months later," said Turski, who went public with her injury on Monday via Twitter.

"The graft that I got is completely synthetic. It's not a real graft, it's in my body and the only thing that really needs to heal now is the bone, which only takes a couple of months. And the [synthetic] graft doesn't need to conform to the body, it doesn't need to adjust, it doesn't lose any blood flow."

Aggressive rehab

The plan is for Turski to be on crutches for about a week, and then hopefully start an aggressive rehab. She also believes that the two previous ACL tears she suffered in 2006 (right knee) and 2010 (left knee) will play in her favour during this recovery period.

"I know exactly what to expect," Turski said. "The first time around was a little scary but you learn quickly that the road isn't straight. I know what the roadblocks might be and how to overcome them. The team of therapists and trainers I'm working with during this rehab…I've done two rehabs with already. Everyone is very familiar with my body, how I work, and so we definitely have an advantage in that regard."

Competitors doubting Turski's ability to be a major force come Sochi may be in for a rude awakening. Nothing has changed for the Canadian, who believes she's still the woman to beat when the sport debuts at the Winter Olympics in less than six months.

"Gold is by far still the focus," Turski said emphatically. "I fully believe that it's possible. I'm going to do everything I can to make it on top of the podium. The goals haven't changed. I'm no stranger to taking months off at a time and coming back strong.

"I feel like I got a huge advantage when it comes to the mental side of things. I do a lot of mental training already so I know it's just going to be about working that side of things until I can get on the snow and do it physically. And then I don't feel like it will take me long to catch up at all."

Look no further than Canadian coach Toben Sutherland to echo Turski's resolve.

"I am very confident that Kaya can still challenge for the gold," he told CBCSports.ca in an email. "We, the team, will be supporting her and getting/giving her the tools and support she needs to be ready in the start gate in Sochi. She has the skiing skills to get the job done, no one and nothing can take that away from her.

"At this point it's a matter of staying focused on the recovery and continuing to trust that she is already a champion and has overcome similar challenges like this in the past to find herself on top of the podium."

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Who needs to step up for goal-starved Whitecaps?

The Vancouver Whitecaps are doing some goal searching.

It's been almost three months since a midfielder has found the back of the net for the MLS club, which has only mustered four goals in the last six games.

Sports reporter Karin Larsen of CBC News Vancouver takes a closer look at the Whitecaps' offensive struggles in the video above.

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CFL Power Rankings: Stamps run roughshod

1. CALGARY STAMPEDERS[Unchanged]
Overall record: 6-2
Streak: Won 1

That went well. The defence knocked Toronto pivot Ricky Ray out of the contest early, Kevin Glenn was his normally efficient self at QB, Jonathan Williams and Matt Walter combined for 137 yards in for the injured Jon Cornish, eight receivers caught at least one ball and Larry Taylor produced strong field position on kick and punt returns. Charging White Stallions defence shut off any running attack from the Argos and added four sacks. Rene Paredes actually missed a field goal, but that was going to happen sometime. Efficient and practical. Nothing crazy. That's how you win a road game.

2. SASKATCHEWAN ROUGHRIDERS [Unchanged]
Overall record:7-1
Streak: Won 2

Now three straight games the Riders haven't played well as first one part of the machine starts to miss, then another. This time it was the defence, giving up too much on the ground and big plays at poor moments, bailed out by a whacking good game from the line. John Chick must be a frightening sight coming right at you, grinning. Darian Durant led a dynamic attack that relied on its best receivers (Weston Dressler, Chris Getzlaf) to lead the way through the air. And there's Kory Sheets, up over 1,000 yards rushing now in just eight games, a record-setting pace. Keep in mind, he's only run for under 100 yards once this season. He has two against the Bombers' defence now. Update on Rob Bagg: Not as bad as everyone feared and he could be back. Excellent.

3. TORONTO ARGONAUTS[Unchanged]
Overall record: 5-3
Streak: Lost 1

Note to Ricky Ray: When things are falling apart and you are moved to run around out there trying to make something out of nothing, STOP. Fall down. Take the loss. Ray was 6-for-6 and warming up for another sensational game when 250 pounds of Charleston Hughes fell on him, wounding a shoulder and bruising the Argo chances for the night. Zach Collaros came in and, without even a hint of a running game, he had no chance to get anything going because, see, he's not Ricky Ray. Two real problems have appeared -- find a new RB while waiting for Chad Kackert to get back late season, and plug those holes in the secondary.

4. B.C. LIONS [Unchanged]
Overall record: 5-3
Streak: Lost 1

Humiliating. Awful. Embarrassing. How can you possibly lose to a team like Montreal that is wracked by injuries -- missing all of its best offensive players and featuring a third-string QB you picked off four times? Travis Lulay was left to his own devices by the blockers, resulting in four sacks and two fumbles. No running game. Couldn't finish drives (a problem all year). Special teams were just awful. Defence gave up over 460 total yards. Yet they had this one in hand in the final seconds until the secondary gave it back. Why coach Mike Benevides didn't make these guys take the train home to give them time to repent is beyond me.

5. HAMILTON TIGER-CATS[Unchanged]
Overall record:4-4
Streak: Won 3

Would have been nice to move this group into fourth, but those four wins include three against the Bombers and one over Edmonton. For now, the Cats remain King of the Second Division, but they are showing signs of coming together under new head coach Kent Austin. QB Henry Burris had a bit of a down day, but his backup Dan LeFevour was an entertaining key again, running the short yardage unit and catching a return toss from Onrea Jones for a TD of his own. See those running back moves on that? Cool. C.J. Gable is also looking good as a running and passing threat. Now, it's back-to-back with B.C., then Calgary, and we'll see what the Kitties really have.

6. MONTREAL ALOUETTES[Unchanged]
Overall record: 3-5
Streak: Won 1

Larks fans have to be proud of their guys this week after that improbable comeback victory over B.C., given there are nine starters on IR including QB Anthony Calvillo and most of his offensive line. Third-string pivot Tanner Marsh completed only 14 of his 32 tries for 1 TD and four picks, for gosh sakes. Those 14 tosses, however, created 23.9 yards per. And despite tossing two interceptions in the final minutes, Marsh went all Texas-tough on the Lions by moving his team into range for the winning FG. Congrats to Tyron Carrier for his 274 return yards. Montreal? Every chien has its day.

7. EDMONTON ESKIMOS[Unchanged]
Overall record: 1-7
Streak: Lost 6

For gosh sakes, nobody panic. These guys are slowly coming together and are getting closer. A huge win over Saskatchewan almost materialized out of the high northern Alberta sky this week, but two botched trips inside the red zone in the fourth quarter came to nothing. Rebuilding is a bumpy process, and after protecting Mike Reilly so well the week before in Toronto, the big fellas broke down again, leaving the QB on his butt too much. He also needs to recognize where Dwight Anderson is on the field and not throw in that direction. There are good pieces all over this roster, just waiting to mesh together. And those two magic words once again, folks ... Fred Stamps.

8. WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS[Unchanged]
Overall record: 1-7
Streak: Lost 6

Too late to panic now, the steamship's gone down. So it's into the yard to start a new one for 2014. Find a couple of good young QBs down south you can develop. Check the NFL cuts for people you can look at over the next 10 games. And when you lay down the keel on the new ship remember that it should be made of talented Canadian players -- lots of them. To that end, the Bombers' most important employee right now may be Kyle Walters, who became head of Canadian scouting this year and had the assistant GM portfolio added to his business card a few weeks back. Go say hi at a CIS game near you. He'll be there. Drop him a name or two.

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Sochi Social: Women's hockey team Q&A

The spotlight was on Canada's top female hockey players Monday as they hit the media circuit in Calgary, and we thought this was a great opportunity to experiment with social media.

[<a href="//storify.com/monikaplatek/sochi-social-interacting-with-the-women-s-team" target="_blank">View the story "Sochi Social: Women's hockey team Q&A" on Storify</a>]</div>

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Alex Ovechkin helps unveil Team Russia's Olympic uniforms

While Canada's top NHL stars congregated in Calgary for an Olympic orientation camp, Russia turned to one of its top snipers to help unveil the uniforms the country's players will be sporting at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Washington Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin helped show off the host country's new look on Monday in Moscow with help from legendary Russian sensation Vladisav Tretiak.

Click the above video to see it for yourself.

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Wharnsby: Babcock uses ball hockey to send message

The Canadian Olympic men's hockey team hit the ice after all at its orientation camp, though the ice was covered by a ball hockey surface. And there was a reason for the odd scene on Monday.

CALGARY -- Seeing Sidney Crosby and the rest of the Canadian Olympic men's hockey team playing ball hockey on an international ice surface was humorous to some, but there was a method to head coach Mike Babcock's madness.

He wanted his players to get a feel for the size of the Olympic ice surface, how he wants the team's breakouts to go, as well as the forecheck. It was really no different than what football and basketball teams do during off days.

So the ice was covered and the Olympic hopefuls went out in running shoes with sticks and gloves. Call it a ball hockey walk-through.

Babcock went as far as saying he wouldn't be surprised to see his team, the Detroit Red Wings, do a walk-through at the team hotel one day, rather than take to the ice.

"I thought this was great," he said. "No one got killed. It wasn't hard. No one got hurt. There was no wear and tear on the body. It was fun, and it was different. The National Hockey League is 82 games, and it's a grind. There was nothing wrong with this. It was good. They tell me Bob Johnson used to do this. That's what [Edmonton Oilers president] Kevin Lowe was telling me last night."

Babcock did his walk-through research. He summoned advice from Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo and Detroit Lions quarterbacks coach Todd Downing on how to conduct the exercise.

Then, before Crosby and Co. arrived in Calgary on Sunday, he enlisted the services of the University of Calgary men's team. Babcock and the rest of the national team coaching staff put the U of C team through a dress rehearsal before the big boys arrived.

"It was nice that we were able to go through different situational things," Canadian forward Steven Stamkos said. "It's one thing to watch it on the video and see clips, but getting a chance to actually physically go through it, even though we weren't on skates, it was nice just to get spacing, knowing which lanes we have to fill. It was a very productive day."

Between the pipes

Easily the most scrutinized position for the Canadian team over the next three months will be who tends goal in Sochi.

Roberto Luongo may be the incumbent because he was in goal for Canada when it struck gold in Vancouver. But considering Luongo was a backup last year and Montreal Canadiens standout Carey Price did not perform well in the playoffs against the Ottawa Senators, this is a wide-open battle.

Besides the others invited to the Calgary camp -- Mike Smith, Braden Holtby and Stanley Cup-winning goalie Corey Crawford -- don't count out Cam Ward and Marc-Andre Fleury.

"Anybody," said Babcock, when asked which goalies outside this camp could make the team. "There's lots of players who aren't here that probably might end up with an opportunity. Play good. I read or hear, 'Oh this guy feels snubbed.' So what? Do something about it. The great thing about life is you get to control what happens to you the majority of the time. Do something about it if you're not here.

"One of these goalies will be real good. And one of these goalies will be hot [going into the Olympics] that everyone will know who's playing goal for Canada."

From Crawford on down, each Canadian goalie candidate does not buy into the criticism that this is a position of weakness with the Canadian Olympic team. Price doesn't mind the constant scrutiny. After all, he plays in Montreal.

"This is a daily occurrence where I play," he said. "It's nothing new to me, being in front of everybody here, it's just another day on the job. I think that's definitely beneficial to me. At the end of the day your performance is on the ice and it'll take whoever is playing the best at that time. That's the way I choose to look at it."

Line combinations

Babcock said not to read too much into the lines he employed in the walk-through. But for those who want to know, here's how the forward units and defence pairings broke down:

Forward lines

• Chris Kunitz -- Sidney Crosby -- Patrick Sharp
• Brad Marchand -- Patrice Bergeron -- Jordan Eberle
• Milan Lucic -- Matt Duchene -- James Neal
• Taylor Hall -- Jordan Staal -- Dylan Walchuk (Who? See below.)
• Andrew Ladd -- Ryan Getzlaf -- Corey Perry
• Eric Staal -- Jonathan Toews -- Rick Nash
• Martin St. Louis -- Mike Richards -- Jeff Carter
• Logan Couture -- John Tavares -- Steve Stamkos

Defence pairings

• Marc Staal -- Drew Doughty
• Dan Hamhuis/Jay Bouwmeester -- P.K. Subban
• Dion Phaneuf -- Brent Seabrook
• Travis Hamonic -- Alex Pietrangelo
• March Mehot -- Kris Letang
• Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Dan Boyle
• Duncan Keith -- Shea Weber
• Karl Alzner -- Mike Green

Dream day

At first, Dylan Walchuk thought someone was playing a joke on him when he answered his phone on Sunday evening. But this was no joke.

The voice on the other end was Mark Howell, his new coach at the University of Calgary. He informed his incoming freshman forward that Hockey Canada wanted Walchuk to help out the Canadian men's Olympic team in their ball hockey walk-through on Monday.

"It was like a dream come true," he said. "It was sweet. To see those guys on TV all the time and then getting to play with them, they're all good guys and it was an experience I will never forget.

"It will be cool to see myself on television tonight."

Hockey Canada needed someone to fill in for Joe Thornton. The San Jose Sharks captain stayed home this week because his two-month-old baby boy briefly had to be hospitalized with an illness.

When the 5-foot-9, 170-pound Walchuk entered Canada's dressing room, he found his stall right between Crosby and Brad Marchand. He even had a brief discussion with Crosby.

So why did Hockey Canada choose Walchuk? Well, when Babcock and his assistants put the University of Calgary through a practice last week, Babcock was impressed with the former Spokane Chiefs forward. It probably didn't hurt that when Babcock coached junior, it was in Spokane.

"That's the best story about this whole thing so far," Babcock said. "Life is about what you make of it. Mark Howell and the U of C Dinosaurs helped us out, and they helped us out to get the coaches organized.

"Their team had a team party, a double-kegger the night before I came in. We put them through the paces and that kid was the best kid on the ice by a million miles. So when Thornton couldn't come in, that's how life should be -- when you do good things, good things happen. He did a good job. He didn't have to. He did a good job, was excellent out there."

After he explored opportunities in Europe and the ECHL, the 21-year-old Walchuk of McBride, B.C., only decided to attend the University of Calgary a couple weeks ago. He will study business.

He took line rushes with Jordan Staal and Taylor Hall. What will he take away from this experience?

"Hopefully these shoes?" he joked, pointing to the pair of expensive runners each Canadian player wore. "The biggest thing is the experience and their demeanor at the rink. That is something a guy like me should pick up on."

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Olympic hopefuls face off in ball hockey at camp

Steve Yzerman still remembers what it was like in Nagano in 1998, the first Olympics with NHL players and an example of Canadian failure on the bigger, international-sized ice surface.

The time-honoured strategy of dumping the puck in and forechecking didn't work.

"You can spend a lot of time skating places and getting there just a second late, taking yourself out of the play," said Yzerman, now Canada's general manager. "It is a different game."

It was a different game at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, too, when Canada finished seventh thanks to a lack of offence and speed and the wrong mix of talent for the 200-by-100-foot rink.

'One of the critical things is to continue to play the Canadian game and not adjust to some of the spaces that suddenly arise.'— Coaching consultant Ralph Krueger

San Jose Sharks defenceman Dan Boyle watched from the stands as his teammates struggled.

"It was tough to watch, it was frustrating," Boyle said. "Even though every player on that team deserved to be there and was great, sometimes you need certain things and that's where different guys come into play. I just thought we lacked some things."

Eight years removed from that debacle and four years after winning Olympic gold in Vancouver on NHL-sized 200-by-85-foot ice, Hockey Canada is determined to learn from what went wrong without abandoning its style.

"One of the critical things is to continue to play the Canadian game and not adjust to some of the spaces that suddenly arise," coaching consultant and former Edmonton Oilers coach Ralph Krueger said. "But you need to make sure that you don't change your game or make too many adjustments that will weaken what makes Canada strong."

Fast team

What makes Canada strong, Yzerman and the coaching staff hope, is speed and agility. Perhaps that's part of what the 2006 group was lacking.

Judging by the comments of those in charge of making up the 2014 roster, it doesn't sound like that'll be a problem this time around, even if it's at the expense of some players who won gold four years ago.

"The biggest lesson is foot speed, for all players. You have to be able to skate and you have to be able to move the puck," Oilers president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe said. "The team will be made up of players who can skate, think and move the puck. There could be a number of changes form the gold medal team in Vancouver."

From the standpoint of piecing the team together, Canada learned from its folly in Turin that bringing back the majority of a team that just won gold — in that case the 2004 world championship — doesn't always work. Turnover is to be expected because Yzerman wants a team built for big ice.

Of course it's not as simple as picking 22 burners.

"We're not just going to take the 14 fastest forwards and the eight fastest defencemen," Yzerman said. "Hockey sense is probably the most important aspect a guy can have, particularly playing at a really high level, playing with good players around you."

If it were all about speed, Taylor Hall of the Oilers, Marty St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins would be locks.

"I think I'd be a great player on big ice," Hall said. "I've always felt that the big ice would certainly be good for my kind of game. Hopefully they see that, too. I think they're going to really determine their team on what it's like to play on big ice."

Boyle, who played in Sweden during the 2004-05 lockout, knows it's about more than just racing up and down the ice.

"You've got to be able to skate, but your angles are a little bit different," he said. "Whether you're a forward or defenceman I think the angling out there is a little bit different."

Ball hockey drills

That's where hockey sense comes in. Because of the high cost of insurance, coach Mike Babcock had to get creative, putting players through ball-hockey walkthroughs on a boarded-up international-sized rink at Canada Olympic Park.

What that exercise allowed players to see was the amount of space they'll have to work with. But assistant coach Ken Hitchcock also wants players not to feel like the bigger ice gives them room to play slower.

"I think the sucker play is you have more space, you have more time, so the tendency is to take more time," the St. Louis Blues coach said. "It's the big mistake. When we play well as Canadians, we play fast defensively and even faster offensively. It's the sucker play if you make that mistake on big ice, you end up being slow and you get covered over quickly, defensively."

Having experience on big ice could be valuable, especially for defencemen. Marc Methot of the Ottawa Senators represented Canada at the world championships in 2012 and 10 players from the 2013 team are at camp.

"The game's completely different," Methot said. "Showing that you can keep up and defend properly on that big ice surface is huge. It's an advantage I have, and I'm hoping that it'll help me out."

Of course it's no prerequisite that players have a wealth of experience on the big ice. The key is more about having players who are willing to adjust after playing the first part of the NHL season on smaller rinks.

Like Gene Hackman in "Hoosiers," Hitchcock could use a tape measure from end to end and show that it's still a 200-foot rink.

"The commitment to play at both ends of the rink is critical," he said. "I think we've learned over time that there are so many good teams with so many good players and, especially over there, they know how to play on that ice. I think having players that can play that 200-foot game is more important than the position they happen to play."

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Live Blog: Hockey Canada's Olympic orientation camp

For Canada's Olympic men's hockey team, the road to Sochi begins in earnest with Hockey Canada's orientation camp in Calgary.

Starting Sunday, 46 players (it was 47 before Claude Giroux pulled out, citing his ongoing rehab from finger surgery) will convene for a series of meetings, information sessions and team-building events. There will be no on-ice activities, however, due to prohibitive insurance costs.

Only about half of those men will earn the right to help Canada defend its gold medal when the Sochi Olympics open in February, and uninvited players can still get in if they make a strong enough impression before the Dec. 31 deadline for countries to submit their rosters.

Follow the camp through our Scribble Live blog, featuring news, notes, tweets, photos, video and more from Hockey Night in Canada analysts and CBC Sports journalists on the scene in Calgary.

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NHLers arrive at Canada's Olympic orientation camp

Sidney Crosby would like to be on the ice this week at Hockey Canada's Olympic orientation camp. So would Roberto Luongo.

Instead, the high cost of insurance will limit them to some optional off-ice workouts and maybe some golf on the side. But Hockey Canada figures that no skating is no problem for the players who travelled to Calgary for a few days of meetings, bonding and information-sharing in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"It would be nice, but it's not the case and I still think we can get a lot out of these few days without skating," said Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain who scored the gold-medal-winning goal in Vancouver in 2010. "There will be a lot of information being thrown out there and we'll have to learn a lot in a short period of time, but I think everyone is kind of excited for that."

Those who went through this experience four years ago before the Vancouver Olympics remember it fondly. They were able to skate then, something that allowed coach Mike Babcock to at least get a rough idea of line combinations.

General manager Steve Yzerman would have liked that extra preparation, but as assistant coach Claude Julien of the Boston Bruins pointed out, not having the luxury of skating gives the staff a "great opportunity to do something different."

"What you do in the next three days, we've learned over time really matters," said assistant Ken Hitchcock, who coaches the St. Louis Blues. "The terminology that Mike talks about that we put in the next two days, the systems, the walk-throughs, are really, really important because all of us at the end of this event, we get onto our own teams and we don't think about it until we get on the plane. Having that information that the players can draw from, we can go back and hit familiar ground right away."

Bonding the main goal

Creating some familiar ground is one of the main goals in the next couple of days. Many of the players at least know each other, but as Kevin Lowe, president of the Edmonton Oilers, noted, there's no way to underestimate "camaraderie and relationships" going into the Olympics.

Spending time together is one thing players said they're trying to get out of this experience.

"I know a lot of them are going to be my opponents during the season; some of them are pretty close friends that I haven't seen in while, so it's a plus," said Ottawa Senators defenceman Marc Methot. "And being around some great hockey people, there's always an opportunity to learn a lot of cool new things. And we're still getting a couple workouts in. They're optional workouts, but we are working out, so it's not a complete loss, physically."

Anaheim Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf emphasized the need to stay in a workout routine, which also might be the biggest downside of not skating at this camp.

"I don't think it matters from a standpoint of preparing for the Olympics. I think that we're all professional players here, we're all playing relatively the same game. There's no big hockey secret out there," Getzlaf said. "I think that the only thing that would be nice to keep on skating because we're getting prepared for our own (NHL training) camps. This is a big chunk, this is almost a whole week where we're not going to get our skates in."

San Jose Sharks defenceman Dan Boyle, 37, was "thrilled" not to be skating because he hadn't ramped up his off-season regimen too much before going to Calgary. Oilers left wing Taylor Hall would love the opportunity to skate with a lot of talented potential teammates, but he was relieved because he's not yet in peak shape to do so.

Players generally didn't protest the lack of on-ice activities because the insurance issue was out of their hands. Hockey Canada president and CEO Bob Nicholson estimated that with contracts totalling about $1.5 billion, it just got too expensive to insure them and allow players to lace up their skates.

"I don't think it's anything major," said Luongo, who won gold in Vancouver in 2010. "It's always fun to go on the ice with the country's best players and it kind of kicks off your season a little bit one you do that. It's going to be a good time here even though we're not skating. But it would've been nice to maybe stop a few pucks."

These players will get their chances to skate with teammates soon enough, when NHL camps open next month.

"Guys have been working out and guys have been skating a lot recently," Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven Stamkos said. "Maybe a little break is going to be nice before you really go hard for two weeks heading into (training) camp. ... It's not like even if we were going on the ice we're going to be doing a lot of tough, tough situation things. We're probably going to get the same results by going over things with coaches, watching video and things like that."

That's where Babcock's coaching comes in. He said there's "no sense worrying" about not skating, simply adjusting to the situation on the fly.

The Detroit Red Wings coach singled out everyone getting to know each other and implementing the details of how Canada is going to play in Sochi as two important pieces of camp.

The third element is far more wide-ranging.

"Being an Olympian to me is much bigger than just being part of a regular hockey team," Babcock said. "You're part of a bigger team: the Canadian team. That's not just the Canadian hockey team, that's the Canadian Olympic team. I think it's a special, special thing. When you get special opportunities, your preparation should be the same. Our preparation this week has to be gold-medal preparation."

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Who will make Team Canada for Sochi 2014?

Let the predictions begin.

The players have just arrived in Calgary for the opening day of Hockey Canada's Olympic camp, and the selection process hasn't even started yet. However, the big question surrounding the orientation camp is: Who will make Team Canada for the 2014 Sochi Olympics?

CBC Sports' Peter Armstrong takes a look at the players who could and should be on Canada's men's hockey team.

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Wharnsby: Team Canada out to learn from mistakes

The Canadian men's Olympic ice hockey team has never won abroad. So in order to be better prepared to perform on the the big ice surface they have enlisted the services of former Edmonton Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger to help the Canadian cause.

CALGARY -- Head coach Mike Babcock has made it clear to the hopefuls for the Canadian men's Olympic hockey team that they better hit their stride in the first three months of the season or they're not going to Sochi.

"It's the guys that play the best who are going to be on the team. The guys who can skate, the guys who take care of the puck, the guys who play 200 feet," Babcock said on Sunday as the Canadian management team, coaches and players began a four-day orientation camp at Hockey Canada's headquarters.

"This isn't an evaluation camp at all. This is an opportunity to get to know one another, get some sense of how we're going to play and understand what it's going to take to be on our team. We'll explain that to them. In the end, the management team is going to watch them very closely the first three months. Whoever's playing the best will be on the team."

In other words, there will be no loyalty to the 2010 team members.

"We're real excited about the opportunity we had [in 2010]," Babcock said. "We enjoyed it. But that's over with. This is a new opportunity, and so some guys who played on that team are still on the top of their game. They're going to be on the next team and some guys who were on that team didn't get invited to the camp and their career is not at that point."

Sochi will be the fifth Winter Olympics with NHL players. Canada has gone a perfect two-for-two in North America with gold medals in 2002 in Salt Lake City and 2010 in Vancouver. But abroad the results have been dismal. In 1998 the Canadian contingent finished fourth in Nagano, Japan, and the Canadians were even worse in Turin, Italy, where they finished seventh.

Lesson learned

If there were lessons learned from the 2006 team it was that Wayne Gretzky and the management team were too loyal to members from the championship 2002 club and the Canadians didn't have the right personnel to compete on the big ice.

Martin Brodeur, Simon Gagne, Chris Pronger, Adam Foote, Wade Redden, Rob Blake, Joe Sakic and Ryan Smyth were the players common to the 2002 and 2006 teams. There also were injuries. Scott Niedermayer was hurt and Pronger played hurt.

Edmonton Oilers president Kevin Lowe was part of the management teams in 2006 and 2010 and returns for another kick at the can. He was asked for his thoughts on what went wrong in 2006.

"We are much more open-minded to have a different team than the gold medal team in Vancouver," he said. "Not that we were close-minded for '06 after Salt Lake, but certainly respectful of the group that had won in '02.

"The biggest lesson is foot speed -- for all players. You have to be able to skate and you have to be able to move the puck. We've seen that time and time again, in '06 and [at the] world championship the last couple of years. It's quite evident. The team will be made up of players who can skate, think and move the puck. There could be a number of changes form the gold medal team in Vancouver."

Canadian team executive director Steve Yzerman recalled that even the gold-medal winning 2002 team had trouble adjusting to the bigger ice surface in Salt Lake City. He remarked the Canadians were too aggressive and often got caught out of position on the forecheck.

"I know in '02 in Salt Lake we adjusted after a game against Sweden," said Yzerman, who added that Canada shifted to a 1-2-2 forecheck after that game. "It is a different game. It really becomes a lot more like soccer in that you've got to defend more as a team and pressure more as a group of five."

Ralph Krueger joins the team

To help formulate game plans, prepare scouting reports on the other countries and to be a sounding board for the coaching staff, Hockey Canada has hired former Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger as an advisor.

"We brought Ralph on board because he knows way more about the big ice than we do, and  the bottom line is we don't want to be making decisions over there because we got backed off because something went wrong," said Babcock, who added that Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien will be responsible for the penalty kill.

"[Julien] was asking Ralph this morning, 'Can we pressure that hard?' No one knows better than him. Real good man. Real good hockey coach. We thought he was a real good coach in our league and an international coach for a long time. He's going to be a big part of our staff. Likes to have fun, and is going to be important for us."

The 46 Canadian players invited to Calgary will stay off the ice and be confined to meeting and video rooms over the next few days because of the high cost of insurance. Hockey Canada estimated it would have cost more than $1 million to cover the expensive contracts of the Canadian hopefuls, whose contracts were worth $259 million for the 2013-14 season and more than $1.5 billion over the length of all their deals.

After this camp concludes, the coaching and management staffs will stay in touch monthly and the conference calls will intensify as the Dec. 31 roster deadline looms.

There are whispers that the United States team has asked for a 24-hour extension in order to announce its team during the broadcast of the Winter Classic on New Year's Day.

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