the pre tournament pessimism regarding roster construction was concerning their ability to compete with the ”top” teams. You will be hard pressed to find any Canadian media or posters on this site who thought the Latvia game would be anything but a blowout.
Listening to a TSN radio segment before the game, the smugness was off the charts. Complaining that there there are too many of “these games” now that Russia isn’t in the tourney, saying the only way the Canadians would win by less than 8 was if they intentionally stopped scoring to avoid embarrassing the Latvians, etc etc. And this was coming from people who were part of the halftime panel/color commentary for the game.
So yes, smug is the right word for the Canadian attitude toward Latvia before that game.