VANCOUVER - Practices resume in the NHL on Wednesday morning for non-Olympians. For at least one more day, however, that group does not include Team Canada.

Whether the Canadians can keep their Olympic flame burning beyond that, of course, remains an extremely tall order, but at least the dream is still alive.

"Every time I coach in one of these things, we always seem to take the long way," said Canadian coach Mike Babcock. "But it's not supposed to be easy. They just don't give those medals out."

On Tuesday night, in their first must-win game, the Canadians pretty much did exactly what they had to do against Germany, a game in which Babcock even referred to once as being a "good practice," beating them comfortably, handily and with enthusiasm, 8-2, to earn a date with the Russians on Wednesday in the quarter-finals.

Now, it was a practice, er, game, as the score would suggest, that the Canadians dominated for much of the way and they needed to dominate it. There were many elements within it that made management happy, too.

For instance, Joe Thornton got off the snide and scored his first goal. Shea Weber produced the first goal by a Canadian defenceman. Jarome Iginla scored two more goals playing alongside Sidney Crosby, with Eric Staal looking like a nice fit on the other side and chipping in with three assists. Together the line had three goals and six points.
 
Another young defenceman, Duncan Keith, continued to be excellent and had two assists. Overall, the defence contributed seven points. Big winger Rick Nash was finally able to break his Olympic goose egg, too, scoring for the first time in 10 games on this stage.

No issues in goal
 
And there were no issues in goal with Roberto Luongo, who faced 23 shots, though few of them were overly challenging.
But it wasn't a perfect win, either, witness a stretch in the second period when they took a couple of penalties, got a little sloppy, allowed the Germans a couple of legitimate scoring chances and ultimately a goal.
 
"I thought we were relentless till we made it 4-0, then we had 10 minutes or so when we lost focus," said Babcock, adding that wasn't entirely a bad thing because it "gave [Luongo] a little action and [Wednesday] we need him to be fabulous."
 
Overall, though, it was a good result from a game that isn't always an easy one to play (remember the Swiss?). But before you start tooting car horns and causing traffic jams, take a deep breath and draw in a little perspective please.
 
This was only Germany, a team that had scored a grand total of two goals in the tournament in their first three games. Whether they were called East Germany, West Germany or a unified Germany, they haven't beaten Canada now in 15 Olympic tries, the closest call being a shootout decision in 1992.
   
So in many ways they were patsies and Canada had to slap the exclamation mark on that point to build a little momentum and give themselves something to feel even remotely good about leading into their date with the Russians, who possess tons of firepower (so far pretty much holstered) but saved their best Olympic performance for the weekend when they beat the Czech Republic to win their pool and advance directly to the quarter-finals.
 
A quick look at the history books, unless we missed one, shows Canada hasn't beaten the Soviets/Russians at the Olympics since 1960 and they sent a struggling Canadian team home in Turin with a 2-0 quarter-final win.
 
But it should be a great matchup. We all know there is a rich rivalry between Canada and Russia dating back to 1972 and even in the past few springs when the Russians beat the Canadians in the world championships. And there is that Crosby versus Alex Ovechkin matchup that is intriguing and personal.

Reputations on the line
 
Indeed, it is games like these in which reputations are made - good and bad.     
 
As Babcock said, the Canadians were a relentless bunch to start the game Tuesday and outshot the Germans 14-4 in the first period, though they only led by a goal.  It was the Sharks line that produced it, with Thornton tapping in a Dany Heatley centering pass midway through, which allowed a few collars to loosen, most notably Thornton's, who has been tagged by the media around here with the unflattering handle "No Show Joe" for his play.
 
Anyway, like we said, it's one thing to produce shots and traffic and dominate the play, but as they did against Norway the Canadians needed results. Meaning goals. They got three of them in the first half of the second period, before they had the little lapse to allow Luongo into the game.
 
In the third they scored 70 seconds in to make it 5-1 and the romp continued from there, something for which Babcock was grateful.
 
"When we got the fifth goal it meant we weren't in the grinder again for 60 straight minutes," said Babcock, who was able to keep the playing minutes down with the big lead, facing games on consecutive days.
 
Anyway, Canada got the job done but if their Olympics should end on Wednesday with a loss against the Russians, no matter how good the spectacle, these Games will be remembered as being another unmitigated disaster.
 
Lopsided wins over Norway and Germany, after all, and a shootout win over the Swiss, with losses to the Americans and, should it happen, the Russians, will never been looked upon as a resounding success.
 
As Crosby put it, "I don't think anyone comes into this happy just to make the quarter-finals."