Now that's what I was waiting for

Well, I finally got around to the Vancouver Games.

Actually they weren't purely the Olympics that I watched Sunday. They were more like the World NHL Championships.

It took hockey to interest me in these Games and, man, was it ever rewarding when the United States beat Canada.

Thrilling 5-3 result. Constant action. Terrific individual efforts from both teams.

Normally pitting nation against nation is a terrible idea. That isn't what the Olympics were designed to do.

Anyway, call what I saw Sunday my guilty pleasure.

Something about international hockey turns me into a gaper. I don't care who wins, but I'm curious what will happen and how it will happen.

Like, would Canada's Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews dare take a run at Blackhawks teammate/U.S. rival Patrick Kane?

Maybe the Canadians should have, along with taking shots at some of Kane's mates on the American team.

The U.S. victory will be categorized an upset, but it didn't look like it. Not from start to finish or end to end or forwards to defensemen to American goalie Ryan Miller.

The Americans sure didn't look too young or inexperienced to challenge the Canadians and later the Russians.

This event symbolized why NHL players should continue to compete in future Winter Games, which the league hasn't committed to yet.

Olympic fans who stumble upon hockey might want to see more of players like Miller, Kane and Sidney Crosby.

The Olympics embellish the NHL, and the NHL embellishes the Olympics.

I wouldn't have suggested extending the relationship 36 hours ago. Then I watched a couple of games that just might have attracted other NHL fans to the Olympics and some Olympics fans to the NHL.

The downside, of course, is the games fracture the NHL schedule for two weeks. Plus the season is tough on players because the usual 82 games are crammed into fewer days.

Still, what a showcase for NHL stars the Russia-Czech Republic and U.S.-Canada games were Sunday. (Sorry, but I didn't stay up for the 11 p.m. Sweden-Finland start.)

As far as I'm concerned you can keep your Olympic skiing, skating and shooting. Keep your luge and bobsled. Keep your curling, even though it's played at my speed.

You can keep Lindsey Vonn, which a month ago I thought was the name of a Cincinnati Bengals linebacker.

Until Sunday's hockey I hadn't watched the Vancouver Games for more than 15 minutes total and not for more than five minutes at a time.

Then the prospect of Sunday's U.S.-Canada hockey game was tantalizing. Apparently these two friendly nations dislike each other on the ice.

Blame my interest on the Blackhawks. They put hockey back on the local sports map, which with the Olympics expands to Moscow and Prague in what has become a small world.

Consider me an example of why the NHL belongs in the Olympics. As one of America's big four sport leagues it'll get snobs like me to tune in.

Meanwhile, the NHL can exploit the Olympics to lure casual sports fans around the world into sampling the league's premier players.

Sounds like a relationship worth perpetuating.