from Scott Burnside of ESPN,

The World Cup of Hockey trophy, whatever the heck they call that monstrosity of an award that goes to the winner of the event, will be in the Air Canada Centre Thursday night as Canada tries to lock down its third consecutive best-on-best championship when it faces Team Europe.

There's no question that the air has gone out of this tournament somewhat in recent days -- especially after Team Europe upended heavily favored Sweden in the semifinals, giving Canada what most believed would be an easy path to a tournament title in the best-of-three finals.

Of course, Team Europe had other plans and played a near-perfect game in the opening title of the finals on Tuesday night before ultimately falling 3-1. Europe head coach Ralph Krueger and his players were defiant in the wake of the loss, insisting that they took no moral victories from essentially playing Canada to a standstill before losing because of a couple of defensive breakdowns.

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