(Hmmm. What to say? Do you start with the obvious or jump whole-heartedly into hyperbole?)

Let's just say the disappointment that has been hanging around Team Canada in the tournament has just been multiplied 100 fold. For, as upset as Canadians have been so far with this team, everyone here truly believed they'd still pull at least this game out.

A loss in the quarter-finals? Unthinkable. (And especially so at the start of the tournament.)

To be honest, I really can't come up with an example of a best-on-best hockey tournament in which Canada played worse than this one in Turin. Even from the start, when a heavily overmatched Italian team played the Canadians to a 1-1 draw through 22 minutes, it was ugly.

Throwing out the round-robin games against Italy and Germany, Team Canada managed only three goals in four tournament games. In the comments section below, Robert Cleave sums it up by saying they looked 'big, slow and clueless.' No argument here.

The things that could go wrong for Canada did. Todd Bertuzzi took an embarassing penalty, the likes of which he's been taking for the past two years in Vancouver, that led to the winning goal by Russia. The team's defence looked out of place and sluggish without Scott Niedermayer and Ed Jovanovski manning the breakout. And, perhaps the most predictable aspect of the team's play, those on Team Canada not having banner years in the NHL didn't play all that well.

The hand-wringing in tomorrow's papers is going to be legendary. I imagine every paper will have at least one columnist opinining that the team's 'mix' was wrong, that Canada's brass assembled a spare-part team that failed to add up to a whole.

In part, they may be right, but, boy, is it easy to criticize in hindsight. The quibbles with the team's roster when it was selected in December were minor, so any holier than thou musings should be derided as such.

The most important thing that I think Canadians should take out of this tournament? The round robin matters. Too often we heard how Canada's poor play against Switzerland and Finland wouldn't matter, so long as they won their quarter-final game.

That's rather brash to think drawing Russia in a winner-take-all game 'doesn't matter.' For, as we saw today, they certainly could be — and were — the better team.

I've also got some advice for Janet Gretzky: Don't ever bet against Alex Ovechkin.

UPDATE The Globe and Mail's Eric Duhatschek hosted a live chat following the game.