OTTAWA - Kazakhstan is not considered an international hockey power, and yet the nation is batting .500 against Canada.

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Thomas Hickey, captain of Canada's national junior hockey team, listens to instructions during practice in Ottawa December 25, 2008.

Photograph by : Reuters

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The teams have played twice in the world juniors and each has won once.

In 1998, Kazakhstan beat a dismal Canadian team 6-3 in the seventh-place game and Canada finished eighth. On that team were such notables as Tampa Bay Lightning centre Vincent Lecavalier and Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo.

Canada evened the score the next year with a more appropriate 12-2 win over Kazakhstan in the quarter-finals - but 1998 was a serious lesson.

It's something most members of this year's team know only from Canada's record book, after all, they were just school kids when the game was played.

But it's still vivid enough that captain Thomas Hickey will raise it in the dressing room before Sunday afternoon's tiebreaker.

Canada is expected to win this game by at least a touchdown. Kazakhstan's main goal in this tournament is to avoid relegation.

But this game is also the equivalent of Kazakhstan's Stanley Cup final: It would be the talk of world hockey if lowly Kazakhstan knocked off the mighty host Canadians.

"Every game a team plays against Canada, it's their biggest game," said Hickey, a defenceman with the Western Hockey League's Seattle Thunderbirds.

"That's going to be their mindset: play your best against Canada and see what you can do. For us, you can't look past any team. This is about building good habits. When you're building and trying to win a gold medal, you want to be playing your best hockey at the end.

"We played a good game against the Czechs, and we're going to work on our habits and how we play. This is like (Friday's) game for us: there's a lot on the line."

It's a message that Team Canada coach Pat Quinn will reinforce.

He came to practice on Saturday expecting to be tough if his players were complacent after their 8-1 win over the Czechs.

But he hardly had to open his mouth. His players worked hard.

He's hoping it carries over to the game.

"For us to have any expectation other than the fact that each darn shift has to be done to the best of our ability, we'll be tricking ourselves, so hopefully we have to guard against that," he said.

Cody Hodgson of the Ontario Hockey League's Brampton Battalion said the plan is to approach the game as they would any other.

"We'll worry about that when we come to it," he said. "Right now, we're going in thinking it's going to be a competitive game and we're going to work on keeping good habits.

"We do a little bit of scouting before, but the main thing is that we focus on ourselves. We know if we're ready, we can beat anyone."

Kazakhstan would be nice, for starters.

. Stefan Della Rovere of the OHL's Barrie Colts left Friday's game early when he blocked a shot. An examination determined his foot wasn't broken but that he had a soft-tissue injury.

The question would be how much pain could he handle?

Saturday, he couldn't handle it. He came out at the start of practice and tried to skate, but couldn't.
He's considered day-to-day. If he can't play, defenceman P.K. Subban will move up to play forward.

"It's more hurt than anything severe, but hurt is hurt," Quinn said.

"It's right at the boot top. The indication is that it will be a pain-threshold thing. He thought he could try it. (Sunday) hopefully he should have better results."

Ottawa Citizen