The finals for the World Cup of Hockey start in a few hours, with game 1 set to begin at 8PM tonight. The dominant Canadian team faces off against Team Europe, a mish mash of players who no one gave any thoughts to, but have worked their way into a three game series vs the Canucks.

Start time: 8:00PM Eastern
Where: Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
TV: CBC, TVA Sports, ESPN, Game Centre Live
Live watch party at Maple Leafs Square

So whats going on with the finals? It’s a best of three series being played tonight, Thursday, and if necessary Saturday. The odds are good that Canada will win in two games, Europe lost in the final round robin game for both teams 4-1.

Were they just playing possum? Lulling Canada into a false sense of security? Maybe, but probably not at all, since Canada is more stacked than that time we combined three Jenga towers into one ultimate Jenga tower.

Possible Lines
Team Canada

Brad Marchand-Sidney Crosby-Patrice Bergeron
John Tavares-Claude Giroux-Steven Stamkos
Logan Couture-Jonathan Toews-Corey Perry
Joe Thornton-Ryan O'Reilly-Matt Duchene

Marc-Edouard Vlasic-Shea Weber
Jay Bouwmeester-Drew Doughty
Alex Pietrangelo-Brent Burns

Carey Price
Corey Crawford

Europe

Tomas Tatar-Anze Kopitar-Marian Hossa
Nino Niederreiter-Frans Nielsen-Mats Zuccarello
Thomas Vanek-Leon Draisaitl-Tobias Reider
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare-Jannik Hansen

Zdeno Chara-Andrej Sekera
Roman Josi-Dennis Seidenberg
Christian Ehrhoff-Mark Streit

Jaroslav Halak
Tomas Greiss

News:

Looks like Krueger has all the right tools to slay Team Canada - G&M

‘Cinderella’ Team Europe has inspired all sorts of countries at World Cup — like Mexico and Portugal - National Post

Intimate, tantalizing, mesmerizing: Why the ‘ref cam’ has been the World Cup of Hockey’s breakout star - National Post

Canada’s NHL superstars swallow pride, ice time for wins - Puck Daddy

With Gaborik out for Europe, it’s not going to help their scoring. The only hope in my eyes is Europe scores a goal and shuts things down into the most boring possible game.

Yay!