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Posted by Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun

CALGARY, Alberta -- The pace of the workouts has been a consistent theme this week at the Canadian Olympic orientation camp, and Sidney Crosby figures it's no coincidence given that the man behind the whistle with the successful Detroit Red Wings teams is the man behind the whistle here, coach Mike Babcock.

"I think it's pretty clear why Detroit's always so good. He's well-organized. He makes sure everyone understands what they need to do. He makes guys accountable out there and makes sure they're doing the right things even at practice," Crosby said. "I think for us in Pittsburgh we've kind of started to play a similar style, a more up-tempo game, and you see how much more fun that is to play and I think that's something he's really focused on. So, it's pretty clear to see why Detroit has such a successful season each and every year."

How fast has the pace been this week?

"You never really know what to expect and you get here and the first day was fast," Crosby said. "We just finished the playoffs a month and a half ago and it was probably just as fast if not faster than that. So we got into it quick."

Scrimmage time

Executive director Steve Yzerman tried to downplay the importance of Thursday's controlled scrimmage. Yet he also acknowledged this will be the last time the coaching and management staff all will be together until the final team arrives in Vancouver for the Olympics in February, so they will be looking for distinct impressions to take with them.

Yzerman said he was looking for players to apply the things they've been working on during the week -- power-play and penalty-killing setups, breakout patterns -- in a scrimmage situation.

"I'm not out there assessing them, judging who's going to be on the team and not on the team based on this," he said. "It's more a continuation of working on the system that we're going to be playing."

One of the things that will be hard not to do will be to read into which players played with whom. But Yzerman insisted there is no point in trying to extrapolate what happens in Thursday's scrimmage with what might eventually take place when the games actually mean something in February.

"Everybody wants to talk about who's going to be the captain, who's going to play on Sidney's line," Yzerman said. "We're trying some things. The coaches envision players playing in certain roles in certain situations.

"Again, I will only say, don't read too much into it. Things change dramatically. Once we get to the tournament, after one period, things can go in a different direction. I go back to that '87 Canada Cup, and next thing you know, [Wayne] Gretzky and [Mario] Lemieux are on a line, and it was probably never talked about before they made the switch."

Buffalo in the house

Diminutive but skilled forward Derek Roy is the only Buffalo Sabres player at this camp and even he acknowledged that he's pretty much a long shot to make the squad.

"You don't want to go through the list of those players because you're going to end up at the bottom," he said with a laugh Thursday.

But the fact that he and associate coach Lindy Ruff are the team's only representatives is an illustration of the current state of the team.

After reaching the Eastern Conference finals the first two seasons after the lockout, the Sabres have fallen short of the playoffs the past two seasons. A bevy of leaders have left, including Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, Mike Grier, Brian Campbell, Jay McKee and, more recently, Jaroslav Spacek.

The Sabres are conservative and cautious when it comes to bringing in top free agents, and this past summer was no different, putting most, if not all, of the burden on homegrown talent like Roy. He led the Sabres with 70 points this past season.

"When big-name players and great leaders like Chris Drurys and Daniel Brieres, those guys left our team. It's tough, but it's business," he said. "At the same time, some of the young guys got to step up and put some leadership onus on themselves and speak verbally in the room, and your actions on the ice obviously have to play a big role, too."

Although the Sabres got off to a solid start last season, they swooned late in the campaign after injuries to key personnel like netminder Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek.

"We've got to do a good job this year," said Roy.

The real rivalry

As much as Canada and the United States have a rivalry in men's hockey, it pales in comparison to the women's side, where, quite frankly, it borders on hatred.

"Sure, there's no love lost between the teams," Hayley Wickenheiser, the best player in the world in the women's game, said this week here at the Saddledome. "I think we're great for the game. We play each other and the buildings are full. People are keyed up to see Canada-U.S. like Canada-Russia on the men's side. It's been a great rivalry for women's hockey and we're headed to Vancouver with the same thing in mind."

Wickenheiser, who, along with the rest of the Canadian women's team, was on hand this week during the men's camp, knows the American women will be looking for payback after Canada went into Salt Lake City in 2002 and won gold. How sweet would it be for the Americans to do it on Canadian soil eight years later?

"I'm sure they'll play that up big-time," said Wickenheiser. "We're going to have our own way of preparing and dealing with it. There's a lot of games against them before the Olympics."

The Doughty invite

Team Canada associate director Kevin Lowe made sure 19-year-old Drew Doughty got an invite to orientation camp this week. Lowe, a member of Canada's management team for a third straight Olympics, said part of the reasoning was learning from the fact they didn't invite an 18-year-old Crosby to the summer camp in 2005.

"Had we had Sidney at the summer camp, then conceivably he might have been able to be on the team," Lowe said. "Not that you can't be if you don't come to the camp, but the coaches would have got to know him."

So this time around, despite the fact it's a long shot for Doughty to make it, why not have the coaches see him this week? The Los Angeles Kings defenseman never for a second thought he'd get an invite.

"I was pretty surprised," he said Thursday. "Going into my first season, I wasn't even expecting to make the Kings. It's all kind of come so fast. It's been unbelievable."

He kept Yzerman's voice mail on his phone and kept replaying it.

"It's one thing I'll never forget," said Doughty. "I kept the voice mail for a while. I was just in shock. I had it until a couple of days ago, then I broke my phone. Which sucks."

He grew up watching players like Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, and now he's sharing a dressing room with them at the Olympic camp. He actually debated whether or not he should call them Mr. Pronger and Mr. Niedermayer.