TURIN -- It can happen at the snap of a finger. Or in this case, the crack of a helmet.
It wasn't even a game, just a Friday afternoon practice for Team Canada, and the players were mostly standing around doing nothing but firing pucks at empty nets when big Chris Pronger -- the defenceman most likely to send that breakaway pass -- tripped accidentally, went down backward and slammed his head into the ice at the Palasport Olympico.
He lay there a few moments, dazed, then slowly got up, shook his head sharply and skated away adjusting the helmet that prevented the unexpected blow from also being a blow to Canada's chances at defending the Olympic gold medal.
He was fine. The coaches and team leaders watching caught their breath again. And all was well in that peculiar little universe that is Canadian hockey.
Not so, however, in other worlds.
Word was just beginning to circulate around the Olympic rinks that the Dominator was no longer around to dominate. Dominik Hasek, the Czech goaltender who became Canada's nemesis when he stopped all five Canadians in that infamous shootout in Nagano, was on his way back to his National Hockey League team in Ottawa, his fragile groin reinjured in the first period of a game against Germany.
The 41-year-old Hasek -- long considered the top international hockey goaltender, and lately held to be the Ottawa Senators best chance at a Stanley Cup -- was out of the Olympics.
"It's over," he said before heading for the airport. "Our medical staff decided that I'm not able to play."
He was leaving in the hopes of recovering in time for the remainder of the Senators' season, and he wanted the Czech people to know that his replacement, Tomas Vokoun, was more than an adequate replacement.
"Czech Republic will be okay in the goal with him," Hasek predicted.
Perhaps, but in an instant the Czech prospects had changed. They lost their next match, to the unheralded Swiss, and then learned that one of their top forwards, Patrik Elias, was also heading back to North America after suffering bruised ribs in a game.
Elias himself had been a replacement for another injured player, Petr Prucha, who had to pull out of the Games because of knee problems.
Canadian coach Pat Quinn could hardly get his mouth closed after he was told all this.
"Wow!" Quinn said, as usual, eloquent and to the point.
The Canadians, hoping to end up first in the preliminary round, finish it up on Tuesday with a game against the Czechs, the scouting report now dramatically in need of recasting.
"He's one of the great goaltenders in the world," Quinn said of Hasek. "He's probably the biggest reason they won a gold medal in 1998. Maybe he would have been the dark horse to carry them again."
That this Olympic gold medal will be decided by speed and skill and goaltending and even luck is obvious; what is less obvious is the role that injuries have already played and are continuing to play.
The Canadians, for example, have only one notable concern coming out of the two games so far against weak opponents, Italy and Germany. "We haven't been skating the puck," Quinn said.
The reason is that the anticipated puck carrier and setup man, Scott Niedermayer, is not here because of a knee injury. Another quick defenceman, Ed Jovanovski, also had to drop out because of knee injury, the result being that if Canada has any possible weakness, it is on the blueline.
The Germans essentially lost any chance they had at all of being a presentable team when NHLers Marco Strum and Jochen Hecht dropped out because of injury.
The Swedes already appear to be missing sniper Markus Naslund, who had to pass because of injury, while they are desperately longing for the return of Peter Forsberg, who has been injured, but yesterday finally got clearance to play.
The Slovaks lost Ladislav Nagy to injury. The Finns were shattered to learn that top goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff was not coming in order to "rest" from previous injuries in the NHL season. Finland also lost the services of several other potential NHL players because of injury.
The most unusual missing player, however, is American goaltender Ryan Miller, who was passed on because he had previously been injured and has since become the hottest U.S. goaltender in the NHL, though not, ironically, in Turin to play for his country.
Injuries defined the teams that were put together and, to some extent, will define the teams that continue on to the medal round.
There has been some concern that a single career-ending injury to an elite professional could put an end to NHL participation in the Olympics, but so far there has been no such incident. Despite waves of panic in Ottawa -- and an admission by the Senators that they all but ordered Hasek to return -- Hasek's injury is not considered, at the moment, that serious.
Yet, even a small injury can have profound effect in such a short tournament where, toward the end, each game essentially boils down to sudden-death play.
A coach, Quinn said, "is always concerned about his players."
"You know it could happen," said veteran Canadian defenceman Adam Foote, who himself was injured earlier in the NHL season but is now healthy and eager to help Canada again reach the gold-medal final. "It's something you don't want to talk about, really."
Or, for that matter, even think about.
