VANCOUVER - As troubled or concerned or maybe even relieved Team Canada might have been feeling the morning after the great scare, the sun still came up, literally, Tiger finally came out, also literally, meaning life in its various altered states went on.

And no matter how bad your day might seem, that Tiger fellow is a constant reminder of how it really can be worse.

Anyway, if adversity truly is the breakfast of champions, well, the Canadians digested a belly full of it in their 3-2 shootout victory over Switzerland on Thursday night - a game in which they allowed a two-goal lead to disappear, were, at times, outworked and, egads, were even outhit. That is not a misprint, folks, just a misfit.

Come to think of it, that must have been adversity not borscht the Russians were eating, too, when they were beaten 2-1 by Slovakia in a shootout later Thursday night. So it is not just a Canadian thing after all.

Anyway, in the words of Canadian coach Mike Babcock, championship teams almost always have a fright along the way and now his team has had its big scare and survived it. The burning question, of course, is whether that big scare was the first and last of the Olympic hockey tournament and how do they respond to it?

Remember, four years ago, the Swiss scared and beat them and Canada drifted to a seventh-place finish.

Of course, it shouldn't be ignored, either, that Canada did find a way to ultimately beat the Swiss the other night, that their best player, Sidney Crosby, embraced the pressure to score the shootout winner on his second chance and goaltender Martin Brodeur was perfect in that situation.

"In order to win at this level of competition, you have to get better every day, you have to continue to take steps," said Babcock. "I think this is a huge step for our team to understand how hard it's going to be and how well we have to play. I think we will be better for this."
 
We will find out, of course, on Sunday, when they conclude the preliminary round against the United States, which beat the Swiss 3-1 and Norway 6-1.

There is no shortage of areas in need of improvement for Canada, either. First, there is the power-play, which was 1-for-7 against the Swiss, but could have been a difference maker early in that game. For whatever reason, they were overhandling the puck and not shooting enough with the man advantage.

Finding a right-winger to play alongside Crosby is also a priority. They started the tournament with Patrice Bergeron, scrapped that plan after a period, then had a nice fit with Jarome Iginla, who scored three times. But Iginla was bounced from that spot and shipped back to the fourth line against the Swiss, replaced by centre Jonathan Toews the rest of the night.

Babcock indicated the defence wasn't moving the puck as well as he would like, either, and the forwards seemed to be overhandling the puck, trying to make the perfect play. They also didn't generate a lot of traffic in front of the goal.

Oddly enough, the Americans might be just the right match up at the right time for Canada, which took Friday off and will resume practice on Saturday. There are not the same expectations and pressures of a game against, say a Norway or the Swiss, where everyone thinks they just roll to victory and put up big numbers and get frustrated when they don't.

There is an obvious familiarity with the Americans and contempt. You often hear the phrase in the playoffs that "the hate has finally entered the series."

Well, it shouldn't be hard to muster a bit of that on Sunday.

"We would have wanted a better result in regulation, but we found a way," said Crosby the other night.

Indeed, unlike four years ago against the Swiss, this time Canada found a way to survive and win the game. Now we see what this team is really made of - whether it has the stomach for that adversity that champions dine on.