OH SNAP Puffy! The Olympic Games finally get underway today when the Canadian Men's Ice Hockey Team faces off against the Norwegians in Vancouver. The Canadians are looking to set the tone with a big start against Norway, showing that a single practice in the last 4 months is exactly enough preparation for this bunch of All Stars to dominate the ice.

If the Turin games are to be used as a statistic in looking at this completely revamped 2010 Squadron, we suppose that it is worth noting that Norway is nowhere to be found on the standings in Turino and the Canadian team received medals made of vanilla pudding or whatever is handed off to the 7th place finishers.

THE 124 MILLION DOLLAR SOLUTION

Whatever the case, the Canadians are icing a team with an eye popping annual salary cap of nearly 124 million dollars, all numbers courtesy of nhlnumbers.com. And before you start yelling like a Dutch Speedskating fan, this is actual 09/10 money, not cap hit.

The only guys who aren't Power Balling Supreme are either on the verge of a vastly richer deal kicking in (Toews and Keith) or are going to get a truckload of money from their current employer (Doughty) just as soon as he wins us all a Gold medal to even further increase his value to the Kings.

G Martin Brodeur - 5.2 million 

G Marc-André Fleury - 3.5 million 

G Roberto Luongo - 7.5 million 

D Dan Boyle - 6.667 million 

D Drew Doughty - 0.875 million 

D Duncan Keith - 1.9 million 

D Scott Niedermayer – 6.0 million

D Chris Pronger – 6.25 million 

D Brent Seabrook - 3.5 million 

D Shea Weber - 4.5 million 

F Patrice Bergeron - 5 million 

F Sidney Crosby –  9 million 

F Ryan Getzlaf - 5.125 million 

F Dany Heatley - 8 million 

F Jarome Iginla – 7 million 

F Patrick Marleau - 6.3 million 

F Brenden Morrow - 4.1 million  

F Rick Nash - 7 million 

F Mike Richards - 5.6 million  

F Corey Perry - 6.5 million 

F Eric Staal - 6 million 

F Joe Thornton - 7.2 million 

F Jonathan Toews - 0.85 million 

Total 2009/10 Salary: $123.57 million dollars

BIG SMOKE

Who is really icing the team that is going to own the Podium now huh? That kind of money must make the Hockey players blow past the Male Ice Dancers in the hallway of the Athlete's Village with a certain swagger don't you think?

To put that total in perspective, consider that the entire speed skating program has an annual budget of $4,200 - or roughly what Sidney Crosby will earn during the National Anthem tonight.

So if the Canadians don't get us the danged gold medal we have our hearts set on, it ain't salary cap issues bogging this team down.

TODAY'S LINE UP

Roberto Luongo has been announced as the go to guy to start in goal against Norway today. The rest of the team is listed below and made $500,485 in the time it took you to read this article. 

Figuring out what player plays what forward is playing what position is a national secret that is being kept underground, in a bunker 12 miles under BC Place at the present time. But we can say that Pronger has apparently been splitting his time in practice yesterday with both Boyle and Daughty because he is such a great big jerk* but that it appears Boyle will be his partner once the puck drops.

*except in the Olympics

AWESOME FORWARDS

Crosby - Nash - Bergeron

Perry - Getzlaf - Staal

Iginla - Toews - Morrow

Thornton - Heatley - Marleau

Richards

AWESOME DEFENSEMEN

Niedermayer - Weber

Keith - Seabrook

Pronger - Boyle

Doughty

AWESOME GOALIES

Luongo (Starting)

Brodeur (Being awesome on the bench)

Fleury (Being awesome in the cheap seats somewhere)

FINALLY

Do Kerrin Lee-Gartner 1992 Gold Medalist in the Downhill proud fellas.

Let's get at 'er.