TURIN, Italy – Woe, Canada. Goodbye, U.S.

Sweden, Finland, Russia, and the Czech Republic secured berths in the men’s Olympic hockey semifinals yesterday, while Switzerland, Slovakia, and two North American heavyweights – Canada and America – were sent packing.

It was a stunning loss for Canada, the defending Olympic champion and favorite to repeat.

After two scoreless periods, Alexander Ovechkin converted a power play at 1:30 of the final period, and Alexei Kovalev added another power-play goal with 23 seconds remaining to lift Russia to a 2-0 victory over the Canadians.

“Everybody in my country is jumping and drinking lots of vodka,” Ovechkin said.

The win sets up a semifinal showdown Friday with Finland, which improved its record to 6-0 with a 4-3 victory over the Americans. The Czech Republic faces Sweden in the other semifinal. The matchups mark the first all-European semifinals since the NHL began sending its players to the Olympics in 1998.

Finland led America 2-0 on first-period goals byVille Peltonen and a shorthanded one by Sami Salo. The Americans tied it 2-2 on Mike Knuble’s goal at 13:14 of the first period and Mathieu Schneider’s power-play goal at 1:29 of the second.

But Olli Jokinen put the game away with two goals later in the second period – one on a power play. The Americans made a late charge, with Brian Gionta tipping in a shot at 15:33 of the final period, to no avail. With the 4-3 win, Finland has outscored its opponents 23-5 in six games.

Silver medalists four years ago, the Americans won only one game of six – 4-1 against Kazakhstan. The United States, which lost all four games by one goal, also tied Latvia 3-3.

“When you lose and don’t get a chance to play for a medal, it’s the most disappointing thing that could happen in hockey right now for me,” American goalie Rick DiPietro said.

“You’d think USA Hockey would be a well-oiled machine, but it’s not,” center Mie Modano added. “Basically, we were on our own for hotels, tickets, flights, stuff like that. Normally we wouldn’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

Mats Sundin scored twice and Sweden beat Switzerland 6-2. Sweden coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson stirred things up earlier in the week, saying it might be better for his team to lose to Slovakia in Tuesday’s final group game – setting up a matchup with the Swiss and avoiding Canada or the Czech Republic.

It worked, and Slovakia, 5-0 in the preliminaries, slipped against its neighbors yesterday. Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one country until they split up in 1993.

Meanwhile, the world champion Czechs defeated neighbor Slovakia 3-1 with goals from Martin Rucinsky and Milan Hejduk. Martin Straka scored late into an empty net.

The Russia-Canada rivalry is the most compelling in hockey, and so was their quarterfinal. Ovechkin, an NHL player for only a few months, scored the pivotal first goal and Russia rode Evgeni Nabokov’s superb game in goal to victory over Canada.

The last time the two played in the Olympics was 1992, with Russia taking the gold medal final 3-1. In the last 13 Olympics, Russia or the Soviet Union has won 12 medals – eight gold.

“All these games are kind of a finals. There is no room for errors,” Canadian defenseman Adam Foote said.