We beat you a couple of days ago, but we're smart enough to know that your goaltender is out because of injury.
Coming from Oregon, I’m amazed at how hockey adept Canada is—but there isn’t much else to do up here during the winters other than drink and have kids (I’ve got six), as the French Canadians discovered long ago. I teach at a podunck liberal arts school (enrolment slightly over 100), and the guys play pick-up hockey every Friday. One of them, who is about an average player, had a chance to spend a semester at Oxford last winter, and he was immediately recruited to play for the Oxford Varsity team (which is about half Canadians), and he was also about an average player on the Oxford team.
His father, who is a lawyer, noted that the degree of casualness in establishing him as qualified to join the team would never be tolerated in Canada for any team with players over the age of about six.