This won’t be news for fans of the Seattle Thunderbirds but for everyone else, I’m telling you now—tear yourself away from doubles luge and choreographed ice grab-ass and get amped about Olympic men’s ice hockey.

This is the real deal.

(I could go on about the problem with all-star games in general—the neutered NFL Pro Bowl, last weekend's meaningless shell of an NBA all-star game. But Olympic men's hockey is the exception. The teams are made up of the very best hockey players in the world, so every shift is top speed and hard-hitting, and they play together for two weeks, designing strategies and getting a feel for timing like a real team. And the players are after something meaningful: Olympic glory.)

The teams are incredible. Team Canada has four overall number-one NHL draft picks and the entire starting forward line from the NHL-Western-Conference-leading San Jose Sharks. Anchored by three-time Stanley Cup Champion Martin Brodeur, Canada will be hard to stop and are the oddsmakers' gold-medal favorite.

Team USA is younger than it has been in the last few Olympics and 29-year-old Ryan Miller, goalie for the Buffalo Sabres, has been just about standing on his head between the pipes. Captain Jamie Langenbrunner leads a hungry squad with more than enough talent to go around and a recent shuffling of personnel has even the third line generating real goal-scoring opportunities.

Add the fact that ice hockey is the national game of the host country. All the pride is on the line. The Great One himself has predicted that if Canada makes it to a gold-medal game, the entire nation will shut down and more than 35 million Canadian viewers will watch. (That’s about 1 million more people than Canada has, but it’s a fair bet that some of the dead would rise to see the game).

Team USA plays team Canada today at 4:40. It'll be an epic rematch from the Salt Lake 2002 gold-medal game—Canada won that time and the US would love to deal some revenge to the hosts.

Get ready for some of the best all-star games in the history of sports.