With a convincing win against the Northwest Territories on Wednesday, the Yukon men's curling team is one step closer to reaching their goals for the Canada Winter Games.

'It's a confidence booster,' said skip Thomas Scoffin of the match that saw the Territories concede the game at the prior to the start of the ninth end, handing the Yukon a 9-1 victory.

'We played a great game,' said Thomas. 'It was the best game we've played yet. It was the way we wanted to play from the beginning.'

The Yukon scored three in the first end and went on from there stealing from the Territories and scoring their own points throughout the game.

It's the highlight of the week so far, said coach Wade Scoffin, Thomas' father.

Long-time rivals with the N.W.T., beating the other northern jurisdiction was an objective well in advance of the Games, he said.

'It was really nice to be able to come out and perform quite well against them,' said Wade.

The Yukon's rink went into the Games with the goal to beat the N.W.T., to come out of the competition as the top-ranked territory and to have a three-end record.

'We're going to work as hard as we can to get there,' said teammate John Mahoney.

But right now, all signs are showing the rink is two thirds of the way there having won two of their five games now, while N.W.T. has won just one and Nunavut has yet to beat another team.

'We've been working on slowly building so we're stronger and stronger through the week,' said Wade.

The hometown rink had some challenges at the beginning of the week, losing their match 12-5 against Manitoba on Monday.

But they stepped up their game as the week moved forward, said Thomas.

'We're more aggressive now than we were at the beginning of the week,' he said. 'The teams we were playing, it wasn't going to work if we were going to play defence and just keep hitting. We needed to get some points.'

The Yukon beat Nunavut on Tuesday 11-4 and had a close game with Ontario on Wednesday morning, ending with the province winning 7-5.

'They didn't panic when things weren't going strongly in the Ontario game and were patient and found a way to be able to generate some points later in the game,' said Wade.

The team is proving though, they are the youngest rink in the competition, made up of players aged 12 to 15, and they are able to strategize and hold their own, said Wade.

'We can't control a win or a loss but we certainly can control how our performance is on the ice,' he said.

The other teams have more size and often more experience, but the Yukon rink is able to use strategy to neutralize those two factors, he added.

'Anybody can beat anyone in a game of curling,' agreed Mahoney.

The rink doesn't think much about the argument of size or age anymore when it gets brought up, said 12-year-old Thomas. 'It's been that way for a long time.'

The team just returned from the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors in St. Catharines, Ont. prior to the Games, where they played against people in their 20s and often train against the men's league in Whitehorse.

It's not worth getting intimidated about other curlers, said Nicholas Koltun.

'It's not really a factor, because normally we play guys who are a lot older,' said Koltun, 15. 'We just play a bit of different strategy of play and different styles with the other teams.'

Mitch Young agreed age isn't important in curling, but added size might be.

'Sometimes it is a factor with sweeping, because they can bring it farther, but I think we do pretty good, actually,' said Young.

'They know how to play the game and how to compose themselves,' said Wade.

The rink is very supportive of each other and apply themselves even more when someone's shot might be a little off.

Today, the team faces off against Saskatchewan.

'They're a pretty strong team,' said Thomas. 'We've got a good chance, I think. If we played the way we played today, we've got a really good chance.'