Practice had been over for a while, but the Penguins weren't going anywhere.

Forget actually leaving the rink at Southpointe; they weren't even straying from the far corner of a storage room, because that's where a laptop showing the live TV feed of a semifinal game from last winter's world junior championships in Leksand, Sweden, was resting.

A group of players and staff members had began to gather late in regulation, as the United States and Canada struggled to break a 1-1 tie. Didn't happen.

Overtime settled nothing.

The crowd around the laptop grew. So did the tension.

The early rounds of a shootout produced plenty of cheers and groans, but no winner.

Insults, mostly good-natured, sliced through the air, and even players with no obvious affiliation developed a rooting interest. Center Evgeni Malkin, who played in two world juniors for Russia, got a reaction from both sides when he cast his lot with the United States.

That proved to be the Americans' final victory of the day, however. A few minutes later, Jonathan Toews' goal in the seventh round of the shootout gave Canada a 2-1 triumph.

The Canadian contingent reacted in a manner usually associated with the end of a world war; the U.S. backers shrugged, dropped a few random expletives and headed for the parking lot.

"They take it a little more serious," said defenseman Ryan Whitney, who twice represented the United States in the tournament.

A little more?

No chance Dickie Dunn would think that captures the spirit of the thing.

Sure, it is possible that as Canada goes after its fourth consecutive gold medal in the tournament that begins today in the Czech Republic, some Canadian somewhere might not have the world juniors as the main focus of his or her existence between now and the gold-medal game Jan. 5.

It is not likely, though, because the tournament captivates that country like almost nothing else.

"It's right up there with the Olympics, for sure," said Sidney Crosby, who played for Canada in two of them.

It does not matter if the games are played in the middle of the night or the middle of the workday. When their team plays, people from the eastern edge of Atlantic Canada to the western side of Vancouver Island put aside more mundane matters -- stuff like eating and sleeping and doing their jobs -- and descend on any available TV.

Or laptop, if need be.

"I can tell you 50 stories of finding ways to watch it," Crosby said. "When [the tournament] was in Russia, it would be three in the morning where I live [when a game would start], and we'd be up and have people over at our house, watching it.

"At school, I can remember one of my teachers wheeling a TV into class and just being like, 'The game is on. Class is going to wait.' That's just the way it was."

Crosby won a gold medal at the 2005 tournament in North Dakota, but a year earlier had been part of the Canadian team that lost the title game to the United States after a third-period meltdown that included goalie Marc-Andre Fleury putting a clearing attempt off one of his defenseman and into the net.

Four years later, Crosby winces at the memory.

"I hate even thinking about it," he said. "It tears you apart. ... There were a lot of tears in that dressing room. A lot of tears."

Redemption came the following winter, when Crosby had Patrice Bergeron and Corey Perry as linemates and shared a locker room with the likes of Ryan Getzlaf, Mike Richards, Shea Weber and Dion Phaneuf.

"We had an amazing team," he said.

The current edition of Team Canada likely is not as good, but its following will be no less passionate. The tournament that is barely an afterthought in this country remains must-see TV on the far side of the border.

"Part of it is the time of year," Crosby said. "It's the holiday season, and a lot of people have the opportunity to watch. Two, it's hockey, and, obviously, everyone's passionate about hockey.

"With junior, the hockey is just so pure. They're dreaming of playing in the NHL, but this might be, for some guys, the biggest thing they ever play in."

And the last time grown men crowd around a laptop to watch them.