Hopeful athletes flocked to the ice at the Canada Games Centre over the weekend with the same goal in mind, making the team.

Sunday marked the final tryout for the 2012 Arctic Winter Games hockey teams.

Players vied for a position on the practice squads, bringing them one step closer to the final roster.

An intermediate team laced up on the women's side while bantam and midget squads competed on the men's side.

The players challenged each other in drills and intrasquad scrimmages, while the coaches and evaluators attempted to whittle the field down to a practice squad.

"It's always difficult,” said Jay Glass, coach of the midget team. "There's no right decision.”

Glass said that the selection often comes down to an intangible trait. "A lot of the time you're talking about the same type of player with the same type of skill set so you have to look for other things,” he said.

Things like size, experience, and team chemistry.

Louis Bouchard, coach of the women's intermediate team, said a team's ability to develop chemistry and play as a cohesive unit is critical if they hope to find success.

But he also knows that type of on-ice familiarity doesn't develop over night.

Fortunately for him, his roster is brimming with dedicated athletes that are willing to take the extra step for the sake of the team.

"Our advantage is we get our girls together to practice for two months,” he said.

"Everyone else will be picking teams and it's a long way from Fairbanks to Anchorage, we're lucky enough that we have girls coming in from Haines Junction or Dawson City and they'll commit to that twice a week to practice with us.”

Bouchard believes that team chemistry helped carry his squad past a perennially strong Alberta team in the semi-final of the last Games.

"We had a team and they had a bunch of individual players,” he said.

Thirty-four hopefuls tried out for the intermediate team and by Sunday evening that number had been reduced to 21. By Jan. 31, the roster will stand at 17 members, with three alternate players.

"The competition was very good,” said Bouchard. "It could have gone either way for a lot of the girls.”

For the midget boys, 28 skaters and six goaltenders were on the ice in the morning and by the end of the night 19 skaters and four goalies remained.

The final rosters for each of the three teams can contain 15 skaters, two goalies, and three to four alternate players, said Jim Stephens of the Yukon Amateur Hockey Association.

Stephens said the turnout for each team had been strong, though numbers dipped slightly for the bantam squad.

Bouchard said the shorter time requirement of the Games allows more players to compete.

"Not everyone can commit to a full length season,” he said. "But for the Games, you only need two months.”

It can be a difficult transition for the new players as they attempt to join a local roster that has more or less stayed the same over the years.

"It's hard for the community kids to come in from Haines Junction or Dawson and fit in with the girls that are always traveling with us or have been doing this for a few years,” said Bouchard.

"But this year I was happy to notice that it was friendly on the bench.”

It's a good sign for a team that is hoping to develop the sort of team chemistry it takes to compete for a medal.

"We're strong defensively, we've got some very good goalies, but we need to work on offensive chemistry,” said Bouchard.

If they can come together as a team, Bouchard believes they will be in medal contention.

On the boy's side, Glass said he expects the midget team to be in the mix for a medal but it all depends on how the team adapts.

"We could be in the running for a gold medal but we could also be fighting just to be competitive,” he said. "We've got a good team here and if we play our best hockey we'll be happy with the results.”

Glass is hoping to develop a fast and disciplined team, one that will follow a similar system to the Cinderwood Midget Mustangs.

Glass believes discipline will be critical, as the players will be competing in front of an excitable hometown crowd.

"We don't want to take ourselves out of any games, the emotions start to run high and the kids will feel the pressure of playing at home,” he said.

"We'll be playing meaningful games in front of some big crowds so it will be exciting.

Hopefully we'll have enough talent to be successful.”