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TORONTO -- Ralph Krueger, the head coach of plucky, piecemeal Team Europe, shines like a light. His coaching tenure with the Edmonton Oilers ended early and badly; now hes the chairman of Southampton, the Premier League football club. Not many men can switch sports at the highest levels. Krueger managed it because when he enters a room, his heart is as open as the door he walked through.On Thursday at the World Cup of Hockey, he was asked about how much the human heart tells in our games, hockey most of all.I dont think theres a game more honest than ice hockey, he said. Theres no hiding here. ... If youre not connected, it doesnt matter how much skill you have, youre going to be dealing with luck and chance. Hockey will punish you if youre dependent on that. Its such a great game because of that. Such an honest game.Heart is an amorphous concept, easy to lie about. Its nice to think that desire can overcome any weakness, because most of us have weaknesses and the alternative is believing that youll never be good enough. And underdogs win sometimes, which means heart must win sometimes, too.Heart is also an impossible thing to metric, and there are times when having all the heart in the world doesnt help. In some ways, big hearts can seem the easiest to wound. Theyre bigger targets.Dean Lombardi, the general manager of Team USA and the Los Angeles Kings, has a huge heart. He is known for his almost blind devotion to his players. If he falls in love with you, he will love you forever. He is the sort of man who makes other men wish they saw the world as clearly as he does.Like Krueger, he, too, talked about passion and hockey on Thursday. Unlike Krueger and Team Europe, Lombardi and his team were going home soon after.Lombardi talked specifically about how he believes heart can close the talent gap between teams.I think that our game allows emotion, competitiveness, caring about each other, to close that gap more than any other sport, he said. And thats why I think its the greatest game. Theres no doubt in my mind that the formula has worked. Weve won two Stanley Cups. The first thing, yes, we had talent, no question about it. But the reason we won, we were a frickin team.When Lombardi was building Team USA, he began with the premise that no matter what roster he made, it would be less talented than Canadas.His coach, John Tortorella, agreed.Ill be honest: Were not as deep as Canada skill-wise, he said. Not sure USA Hockey will like me saying that, but its the truth. Its a situation where I still think, in our mind, we could not just skill our way through Canada.So Lombardi decided that his team needed to compensate with heart. He used his hands to show the talent gap between Team USA and Canada. He said he could have picked a different roster that would have narrowed that gap, and he drew his hands closer together. Instead, he purposefully picked a roster that widened that gap, he said. He pulled his hands farther apart.Their heart, he said, would more than make up the greater distance. In his mind, then, talent has a ceiling, but heart doesnt. Heart must be exponential.He lifted the hand that represented Team USA over the Canadian one.Give me 22 guys that care, Lombardi said. Thats where it starts. From there you can build competitiveness and culture and everything else. But if you dont have 22 guys that care, youre not going to get to square two.Then Team USA came here (with 23 guys) and lost 3-0 to Kruegers Team Europe, lightly regarded almost to the point of invisibility. The Americans didnt just lose that game. They were flat, uninspired, gutless. Never mind too-talented Canada, which also beat them. They couldnt beat a group cobbled together from eight different countries deemed too uncompetitive to dress their own teams.What did that that say about Team USAs heart?Krueger also used his hands to answer that question. In the end, what we did with the U.S. in the first game -- maybe it was like this, the skill levels, he said, and he held the hand representing his team well below his American hand. But the work ethic and the passion and the team spirit was able to bring us above them on that day.Now his other hand, like his team, was on top.Lombardi didnt much like the suggestion that his group had been outgutted by an afterthought team that is also this tournaments oldest.No. There were guys in tears in that room the other night, and they were real, he said of the moments after the loss to Canada that eliminated them. And some of the texts I got from players, Ill treasure for the rest of my life. Thats good stuff. Those are things you dont forget, even in failure. And so that part we got down.Even if heart cant be quantified, Lombardis math doesnt add up. He thought heart would help his players close the gap between them and the better team, which is advancing to Saturdays semifinal. Instead they were caught by a worse one, which will play in Sundays.The harshest possible assessment of Team USA is that it had no heart.The kindest one is that it was made to be broken.Adidas Stan Smith Clearance . Despite dominating possession, Schalke needed an own goal from Nicolas Hoefler for the breakthrough a minute before the interval. The Freiburg midfielder misjudged Jefferson Farfans corner and bundled the ball into his own net. Adidas Stan Smith Outlet Online . LOUIS -- Lance Lynn was one of the more enthusiastic participants as the St. http://www.cheapstansmith.net/ . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. Adidas Stan Smith Authentic .B. - Sebastien Auger made 44 saves as the Saint John Sea Dogs edged the visiting Acadie-Bathurst Titan 2-1 on Saturday in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. Cheap Adidas Stan Smith Shoes . -- PGA TOUR Canada member Steve Saunders took a three-stroke lead Saturday in the Web.PITTSBURGH -- Pirates manager Clint Hurdle substituted freely and often as Pittsburghs game against the Chicago Cubs wore on Monday night.That had everything to do with the score -- Chicago built a 12-run lead en route to a 12-2 blowout win -- but the Pirates could soon find themselves wanting to rotate in a lot of players for a different reason.Pittsburghs tragic number for being eliminated from the National League wild-card race was reduced to two, meaning the Pirates could be out of a shot for the playoffs as early as Tuesday night when the teams play the second of a four-game series at PNC Park.At that point, like a lot of other teams, Pittsburgh could be reduced to looking at several players who might help them in the future -- a future that will come next year, not in October. Once eliminated, the Pirates only real carrot could be finishing with a winning record.This year is what it is, Hurdle said.While the Pirates (77-79) have lost four of five, the Cubs (100-56) have not hit a lull despite clinching the top record in the major leagues. Chicago won for the sixth time in seven games.Theres a lot of self-motivators out there, a lot of accountable people, Chicago manager Joe Maddon said. Theres a lot of stuff going on right now. Beyond the team goals, we all like to see our guys get a chance to win some personal awards. So its easy.In addition, the Cubs are staying fresh by using a lot of players.Were rotating the stock, Maddonn said.dddddddddddd. Guys are coming in that are fresh. Guys that dont get a chance to play that often, they want to play and show what theyve got.Chicago is so loose in these final days of the regular season that Maddon had no qualms about approaching starter Kyle Hendricks during the fourth inning Monday -- while he was still the active pitcher -- simply to ask Hendricks about the nickname for Dartmouth, where Hendricks attended.Hendricks told him it was the Big Green, settling a question that had been floating around the dugout during the game.I had no idea why he was asking me, Hendricks said with a laugh after he pitched six scoreless innings in the series-opening win.For the second game of this series, Chicago is expected to go with right-hander John Lackey (10-8, 3.39 ERA), who will be making his 29th start. Lackey is 3-1 with a 2.39 ERA in his past eight outings.He is 1-2 with a 3.69 ERA in six career starts against Pittsburgh.The Pirates will counter with right-hander Ryan Vogelsong (3-6, 4.85 ERA). After coming back from facial surgery that was necessitated when he was hit by a pitch, he went 2-2 with a 2.48 ERA in his first five starts. However, since then, Vogelsong is 0-3 with a 9.14 ERA in four starts.Against the Cubs, he is 5-8 with a 5.82 ERA in 21 career appearances, including 13 starts. ' ' '