Team Canada captain Thomas Hickey chats with head coach Pat Quinn as they wait for a team photo. The experienced bench boss has been looking for ways to keep his team strongly motivated. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Pat Quinn has an odd definition of adversity.

Then again, when your team hasn't faced any adversity or isn't about to for a few more games at the world junior hockey championship here in Ottawa, you have to be creative.

Canada's national junior team cruised to an 8-1 win over the Czech Republic in its opening game of the 10-team competition.

Their next opponent is Kazakhstan on Sunday, followed by Germany on Monday.

By then, barring a major upset that would probably spark another hockey summit, the Canadians will have two more lopsided victories behind them in preparation for their first real test on New Years' Eve against the United States.

As far as Quinn is concerned, adversity has reared its ugly head in the form of replacing an injured player prior to the start of the tournament, and dealing with a few butterflies in the opening period against the Czechs.

In other words, no adversity at all.

It's not Quinn's fault that there is a fault line at the worlds, with Canada, the United States, Sweden and Russia standing head-and-shoulder above the competition.

And Hockey Canada has nothing to do with rigging the schedule here. The grid follows criteria set out by the International Ice Hockey Federation, which by the way would like to expand the junior showcase to 12 teams and further water down the competition.

After practice on Saturday, Quinn was asked how a coach tell his players they have to get better after a lopsided victory.

He replied that he came to the rink ready to play the role of bad cop as a means to shake things up, but the Canuck teenagers gave him no reason to be tough on them.

"For us to have the expectation other than the fact that each shift has to be done to the best of our ability, we will be tricking ourselves and hopefully we can guard against that,'' Quinn said.

Kazaks have a win to look back on

For their part, the players toed the line that any game a team plays against Canada is their biggest game of the tournament.

"With the Kazaks, that will be their mindset," said captain Thomas Hickey. "We won't look past them."

Hickey, at least, knew the Canadians came out on the short end a decade ago, and that's more than Colten Teubert knew.

"Really?," said Teubert, when told about the most infamous loss by a Canadian national junior team — to the Kazaks when the tournament was held in Finland.

Former national junior team member Corey Sarich sent a telegram to the juniors on Friday, encouraging them to win a fifth straight title and extract revenge for the greatest triumph in Kazak junior hockey history.

Been here before

But it's a familiar road these Canadians are travelling in this era of gold medal games versus the old round-robin competition when the medal winners were often decided before the event ended.

The idea is to get better game by game so you reach the peak in the final.

"It doesn't matter who you play and who you beat. You build and we want to win a gold medal so you want to play your best hockey at the end," Hickey said. "We are working on our habits and hopefully we will keep on building."

NOTES: Quinn said he will stick with his plan on rotating his goalies, meaning Chet Pickard will get the start against Kazakhstan … forward Stefan Della Rovere left the practice early. He blocked a shot in the game against the Czechs and will be a game-time decision against Kazakhstan.