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Sidney Crosby, left, and Dany Heatley horse around at Canada’s practice on Saturday. (Jonathan Heyward/Canadian Press)

Calgary Flames defenceman Robyn Regehr sent out a Twitter message on Saturday that read: “If the Americans win, they’ll probably make a movie about it, so we don’t want to see that happen.”

Canadian head coach Mike Babcock remarked on the eve of the 2010 Olympic men’s hockey gold-medal final between Canada and the United States that he agreed with Regehr.

“I like his way of thinking,” said Babcock, who has seen the film Miracle that chronicled the improbable run of the United States men’s hockey team to gold at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. “My kids thought it was fantastic. I’m not so sure it was that fantastic.”

Even U.S. defenceman Ryan Suter, whose father Bob played on that Cinderella team 30 years ago, stated that his team is not drawing much inspiration from the 1980 team.

“I don’t reckon it is as huge as people make it out to be,” Suter said. “We’re trying to win for ourselves.”

If Canada can turn the tables on its North American rivals, maybe the casting call can go out for an actor to play Babcock in a Canadian flick. After all, if Canada wins gold on Sunday he would become the first coach in hockey history to win Olympic gold, a world championship and a Stanley Cup. He also has world junior and Canadian university crowns to his credit.

This isn’t Babcock’s only motivation, but. He want to beat U.S. general manager Brian Burke because when Burke took over the Anaheim Ducks he wouldn’t renew Babcock’s contract. Burke wanted to bring in his own man, Randy Carlyle.

But in order for Babcock, who was there live to see skip Kevin Martin and the men’s curling team take gold on Saturday, to make history the Canadians must solve that scrawny 6-foot-2, 175-pound wall known as U.S. goalie Ryan Miller. Miller enters the championship game with a tournament-leading .954 save percentage (103 saves out of 108 shots) and hasn’t allowed a goal in his last 111 minutes and 38 seconds.

“As much as is made about goaltending stealing games in this tournament, a goaltender really does reflect his team,” Miller said. “If you guys sat down and broke down our film you can see our team is playing really well. A prime example is the last game against Finland.”

Babcock remarked that Canadian assistant coach Lindy Ruff, who coaches Miller with the Buffalo Sabres, knows all of Miller’s weaknesses. The Canadians talked about getting more traffic, screens and deflections on the brilliant netminder than they did in the 5-3 U.S. win in the preliminary round last Sunday.

Ruff and Miller have not had any contact with each other in Vancouver.

“We shared the same flight out here,” Miller said. “I got him a sausage McMuffin at McDonalds while he made sure he had a seat on the flight. I told him that was going to be the last favour I was going to do for him.”

Scott Niedermayer, the laid-back Canadian captain believes that his team can’t get caught up in how well Miller has played and the roll that the undefeated U.S. team has been on.

“We have to go out and play our game as well as we can,” Niedermayer said. “You can’t make them not play well. You have to go out and make it hard for them. We need to play well defensively and skate hard make it tough in their end.”

On the other side of the rink, U.S. centre Ryan Kesler proclaimed he would share all the holes to exploit of his Vancouver Canucks teammate Roberto Luongo, Canada’s goalie.

Young Canadian centre Jonathan Toews, who will play a key role in shutting down the U.S. line of Paul Stastny, Zach Parise and Jamie Langenbrunner, was questioned what Canada learned from its first outing against the U.S.

“There is a lot we want to differently,” Toews said. “There was a lot we did well in that game. But there were a lot of mistakes made. We gave them a lot of chances. They didn’t really have to work for it. Any bit of success they will get, they will have to earn it. We’ll make them pay the price. We want to play much more intelligently on the defensive side of the puck.”

Canadian defenceman Chris Pronger agreed with his teammate and added, “We want to get off to a better start. We want to come out just as hard, if not harder, than we did against Russia. We know that the way they want to play is similar to the way we want to play.

“We also want to come out of our end a small bit cleaner. At points in that game it was a small bit hectic. We also want to continue to chip pucks into their end and be physical. We want to make them come 200 feet. We need to limit our turnovers because they are a team that can transition very quickly.”

Niedermayer summed up the situation best. “It’s a huge game, probably can’t get any larger,” he said. “It’s a special time to be a excellent hockey player.”

Canada’s John Morris hugs Kevin Martin, right, after the men’s gold medal curling match against Norway in Vancouver on Saturday. Canada won 6-3. (Morry Cut/Associated Press)

It may have taken eight years, but Kevin Martin took that next step up the podium he was seeking with a 6-3 win over Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud in the Olympic men’s curling final Saturday at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

After missing out on gold to Norway at the Salt Lake Games by one shot, Martin returned to the final with his Edmonton-based rink of Marc Kennedy, Ben Hebert and John Morris to capture the gold medal that had eluded the skip in 2002.

The win caps off an undefeated tournament showing for the Martin foursome, going 11-0 and outscoring their opponents with a combined score of 87-42.

It may not have been Pal Trulsen that Martin defeated this time around, but Ulsrud’s rink of Torger Nergaard, Christoffer Svae and Haavard Vad Petersson provided a perfect Norwegian foil for the final match.

Posting a 7-6 squeaker of a win over Ulsrud in their round-robin meeting, the Canadians’ game again proved more overwhelming than the play — and for that matter, the pants — of their Norwegian opponents, whose colourful, diamond-patterned garb has been the fashion faux pas talk of the Games.

Mistakes dominate 1st half

After taking the blank in the first end, Martin lost the hammer in the second as Ulsrud buried his final stone behind two Canadian guards in the eight-foot. A draw to the four-foot guaranteed a single for Canada and the early lead, but handed over the last rock advantage to Ulsrud.

The Norwegian skip was able to get a blank of his own in the third end, but the Canadians provided some distress for him in the fourth. A fantastic double by Morris on the Canadian third’s first rock had Canada lying two in the top edge of the four-foot behind a Swedish stone in the rings.

Those two Canadian stones were spared through Nergaard’s third rocks for Sweden and Martin bumped back to make Ulsrud shoot against three.

Able to eliminate one of Martin’s rocks, Ulsrud’s shot still had the Canadians lying three after Martin’s final stone, including one rock biting the button.

It was that stone that Ulsrud couldn’t eclipse on his attempted draw to the button, giving Canada a steal of one and a 2-0 lead.

Another clutch double from Morris in the fifth had fans on their feet and the Canadians lying one. On Martin’s first stone, his hit and roll had his team lying two, but there wasn’t enough curl on the shooter to get behind the two Canadian guards.

Despite some frustration shown by Martin, it did not turn out to be a problem as Ulsrud’s final draw with Canada lying two was once again light, allowing another steal of one and a 3-0 Canada lead.

Ulsrud’s fourth chance with the hammer was finally a successful one, picking up a pair to cut the Canadian lead to 3-2. From pumping up the crowd with doubles, Morris helped silent the raucous arena with a pair of missed shots in the seventh as his skip stepped into the hack looking at Norway lying three.

A draw for redemption and the pair

Martin’s first shot cruised into the button to freeze on top of the Swedish stone occupying the four-foot and usurped shot stone. After Ulsrud’s shot failed to squeeze that Canadian stone out of the eight-foot with Norway’s last shot, Martin laid down a near-perfect draw to the button for the pair, a 5-2 lead, and perhaps exorcised whatever demons still remained from his heavy shot in 2002.

Morris regained his form in the eighth, notching his third double of the game, and cleared out the house except for one Canadian stone with his final stone. Nergaard kept it that way, missing his final shot with skip stones still to go.

Martin place his first stone on the top of the button, which Ulsrud tried to match, but only managed to push the Canadian stone over the pin and left his own rock open for Martin’s takeout.

A hit and stick salvaged a Norwegian single, but gave the Canadians the hammer back with a 5-3 lead into the ninth.

With skip stones remaining in that end, Ulsrud managed a double takeout to leave Norway lying two after his first shot. But after Martin first knocked the Swedish stone out of the four-foot, his tap-back with the hammer clinched the single point and a 6-3 lead into the 10th end, where the Canadians simply ran Ulsrud out of rocks for the win.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency has warned that a “major” tsunami of up to three metres could hit northern coastal areas within the next few hours following a massive earthquake in Chile.

The agency issued the tsunami alert Sunday morning for its entire Pacific coast. The tsunami was expected to be largest in the north, with waves of two metres or less expected along other coastal areas.

The tsunami was expected to hit northern areas about 1:30 p.m. local time. The agency urged residents in coastal areas to head quickly to higher ground.