The Yukon Territory was once again in the spotlight at Canada’s figure skating championships – this time, courtesy of Bryn Hoffman.

The 18-year-old Yukon native and partner Bryce Chudak, from Rocky Mountain House, Alta., earned a silver medal at the 2016 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.

Hoffman and Chudak, who train out of Calgary, placed second to gold-medal winners Hope McLean and Trennt Michaud, from Ontario, in both the short and free programs with a final points total of 139.15.

Allison Eby and Brett Varley, also from Ontario, earned bronze with 136.01 points.

McLean and Michaud took gold with 154.45. Nine junior pairs competed at nationals.

The result was bittersweet, Hoffman admitted yesterday.

“I’m happy with it,” Hoffman said. “I would’ve liked to skate better in our free skate. I am disappointed with how we performed in the free skate, especially. There was some mistakes, that were uncharacteristic of us.

“But obviously, I’m happy with how we finished. The winners, they completely deserved to win. They skated awesome.”

After earning 51.25 points in their short program Tuesday, Hoffman and Chudak added another 87.90 in their free Wednesday.

“It’s really bittersweet,” she said. “There’s a lot of mixed emotions. Our goal was to skate a clean – or close to clean – long, which obviously we didn’t do.”

Hoffman said the duo made a few “major errors.” She put a hand down on their throw triple-loop, under-rotated a side-by-side triple salchow, and also fell on a throw triple-lutz.

“Those cost us a lot of points,” she admitted. “It was a fight for both of us.”

Meanwhile, last year’s Canadian novice women’s champion skated to sixth place in her first year of junior.

Whitehorse native Rachel Pettitt, 16, finished with 127.95 total points, well shy of gold-medal winner Sarah Tamura’s 155.20.

Pettitt began her national championships with a brilliant short program that had her in medal contention early.

Following Wednesday’s skate, Pettitt was ranked third with 48.87 points, less than four points off Tamura’s leading pace.

But any dreams of a medal unravelled in Thursday’s free program, where Pettitt scored 79.08 points to fellow B.C. skater Tamura’s 102.72.

Still, Pettitt, who now trains out of Kelowna, B.C., was pleased with her overall performance.

“It’s even more than I had hoped for,” Pettitt told the Star today.

“Finishing third in the short was super exciting, especially in my first junior nationals. Going into the long, I was feeling pretty good, but I didn’t have my best skate.”

Pettitt finished seventh out of 18 skaters in the long program.

“My first two elements were great and then I had a few mistakes in the middle of the program,” she explained. “It is what it is, and I kind of got it back together.

“I kept fighting ’til the end,” she added. “I can just walk with my head high, knowing that I didn’t have my best skate at all in my free program and finishing sixth overall, that’s pretty good.”

Unlike Skate Canada Challenge in Edmonton in December, Pettitt said she finally felt like she belonged among the country’s best junior skaters in Nova Scotia.

“I really tried to put that all behind me coming into nationals, and go through all my practices knowing that I do belong here,” Pettitt said.

“I think I proved that in my short program, for sure.”