VANCOUVER, British Columbia  Olympic hockey teams are not last-minute operations. Most teams held camps last summer  except for the Czechs, whose coach, Vladimir Ruzicka, does not believe in them.

The rosters have been set for weeks, with a few late changes because of injury. But because of the N.H.L. schedule, which makes only a grudging concession to the Olympics, players were still trickling in as late as Monday, just a day before the hockey competition began.

Only the teams with few N.H.L. players, which is to say the weaker ones, had anything like a full roster on hand for practices, which could begin Sunday. Slovakia had only nine players and put its general manager, 42-year-old Peter Bondra, on the ice. The Canadians and the Americans canceled their Sunday practices altogether. The United States, with players who were still tired from traveling, had a light workout Monday, using some of its time to take a team picture.

So on Monday afternoon, many of the teams got together for the first time and began the process, which normally takes weeks, of figuring out a power play, a penalty kill, a forechecking system. The coaches had to quickly create togetherness among players who for most of the year are rivals, and deal with the tricky issue of assigning lesser roles to some who are used to being stars.