After several years of climbing the ranks in Whitehorse's broomball league, Coyne clinched the season title in a 5-0 shutout over Arctic Response on Saturday afternoon.

A great crowd came out to watch the victory, and they were treated to an exciting game that saw Arctic Response's goalie diving for the ball time after time.

"We designed the playoffs to keep a few more teams out there to keep the interest up,” said Scott Smith, a member of the Capital Towing team and the vice president of the Yukon Broomball Association.

Coyne held out for the game, keeping Arctic Response scoreless.

Smith said Coyne is a family team, with two generations playing.

"They've had real success this year,” he said.

The team earned many wins heading into the playoffs. After climbing the league in previous years, the team got their well deserved victory on Saturday.

"It all came together for them this season,” Smith said.

The team is lead by Chris Saunders, who Smith says has been involved with broomball in the Yukon for 15 to 20 years, including time spent on the Yukon Broomball Association board.

Arctic Response earned second place overall in the league, and Capital Towing was third after a victory over the Sundogs.

Following the final game of the season, the broomball league met for a banquet and awarded Coyne the league title.

But the last game of the season isn't all the league's members were celebrating.

In November, many of the league's athletes will be taking a transatlantic trip to Innsbruck, Austria for the World Broomball Championships.

About 20 players have already paid and are ready to climb aboard the plane, and more expressed their interest at the banquet on Saturday.

"We're pretty much there,” Smith said.

Smith, along with other board members and Yukon Broomball officials will meet this week to decide how they will pick the team that will make the trip to Austria. Smith couldn't confirm whether a tryout will be held, but said most likely it will be based on interest only.

The plan to go to Austria for the worlds was hatched after Yukon Broomball sent a team to the World Broomball Championships in Vancouver last year. One masters team, made up of players over 40 and one co-ed team made the trip.

All told, approximately 40 people from the Yukon headed to Vancouver last year for the tournament, including coaches and the team.

"It was closer, and easier to get to,” Smith said.

This time around, only a co-ed team will be heading to the worlds,” Smith said.

There had been interest to send both teams, but it has since been narrowed down to just one.

"The interest level was for both a masters team and a co-ed team,” Smith said.

Yukon will be one of four Canadian teams. The tournament in Austria has capped the number of Canadian teams this year, and the total number of teams is set at 40. In Vancouver, over 55 teams participated.

Smith said they managed to organize the team bid early enough that they made the cut, before even knowing there was a cap.

"That was one of our goals, was to get registered early,” he said.

Once the team gets to Austria they will be faced with a few crucial differences. The tournament will be played on Olympic sized ice, while the broomball facility at Takhini is NHL sized.

"It should be a bit more of a challenge over there,” Smith said.

To prepare, the team will be doing dryland training over the summer at the Takhini rink, and booking ice time at the Canada Games Centre's Olympic-sized ice, as well as several exhibition games.

Another challenge will be the rule that three men and three women must be on the ice at all times. To adjust, the team will be bringing along a female goalie.

In between the training, the team will be doing fund-raising all summer to get the final few dollars in place.

With the end of the season comes the end of the BF2 program, a Canada-wide program that helps get youth involved in the sport through school programming.

Program coordinator Roch Nadon has spent the winter introducing students at Whitehorse's public schools to broomball.

"It's seeing results,” Smith said. "It's growing.”

The program is designed to encourage youth to stay active.

"It's promoting sports through broomball,” Smith said.

Next year Nadon hopes to spread the program to the communities.

Also ahead for the broomball league, is the Function in the junction tournament to be held in Haines Junction from April 1 to 6th.