olympic hockey

Maybe I'm misreading the Canadian feeling here, but I don't understand NBC making such a big deal that Canada was so interested in beating the USA in hockey - like the USA is Canada's biggest rival.
It gave me a "Illinois thinks M is their biggest rival" feeling. Obviously team Canada NEEDED to win the hockey gold medal. But I don't think they feel any more satisfaction about beating the US than anyone else. (I know there is some point to be made for making up for the team that beat them in the round robin - but that is not what NBC was claiming.)
On a side note, when will there be enough pressure placed on NBC or any future US network showing the Olympics to actually show events live. And full events. It was so much more enjoyable to watch the skiing events on the BBC feed at work than the 10 minute version on NBC.
NBC's version of the Olympics had maybe 150 athletes. And we were DVRing the closing ceremonies by then, but to go away from the ceremonies to show "The Marriage Ref"?!? WTF