FAIRBANKS – Facing a simple draw to the four-foot for a gold-medal win, Yukon skip Joe Wallinghamʼs rock almost didnʼt make it.

Shouts of "Hard!” rang out at the Fairbanks Curling Club as teammates Trygg Jensen and Brayden Klassen swept furiously, slowly dragging his rock into the house.

In the end, it was enough – edging out Alberta Northʼs shot rock by an inch.

"My legs were shaking, my heart was just pounding,” Wallingham said moments after his dramatic 7-6 victory over Alberta North in the Arctic Winter Games junior male curling finale.

"Sitting in the hack, I was just trying to get my heartrate down and just throw the rock. Iʼd come up heavy a couple of times in that game, so I was just trying to give it to my sweepers this time – or my sweeper. Holy smokes. I knew I wasnʼt heavy, but it was close.”

Wallinghamʼs rink played shorthanded all week after 13-year-old lead Will Klassen suffered a hernia midway through the teamʼs second game.

"Itʼs tough to go with only one sweeper, because itʼs hard for the thrower to get up and sweep his own rock too,” the 17-year-old skip said.

"Theyʼre tired. I didnʼt have to sweep too much.”

An exhausted Jensen said he wasnʼt sure where the energy to sweep his skipʼs gold-medal-winning stone came from.

"We just got it,” the 16-year-old said. "It was all adrenaline. It definitely would have been nice to have another player there sweeping with us.

We played with three most of the week, but our team just stuck together the whole time and we pulled it out – just barely.”

After trading singles in the first two ends, Wallingham scored four in the third to go up 5-1.

The good vibes soon turned to frustration however, as Alberta North skip Dustin Turcotte drew to the button in the fourth when facing five Yukon stones, and then stole singles in the next three ends to even the score.

Wallingham would finally score again in the eighth, only to see Turcotte tied it 6-6 with a single in nine.

That set the stage for the dramatic final end.

"This is what we came for,” Wallingham said of his teamʼs victory. "We didnʼt want to come out of it without a gold medal. Thatʼs all we wanted and we got it. We battled hard. That last game was all about the heart.”

Wallinghamʼs rink finished second to Alberta North in the round robin, after losing to Turcotte 6-4 earlier in the week.

The Yukon would win the 1-2 playoff game 8-3 however, forcing Alberta North to play an extra game to earn a berth in the championship match.

"We had one bad end,” said Turcotte, a 16-year-old from Donnelly, Alta.

"Iʼm really proud of my team. We made an awesome comeback. Just three inches on my last shot and we would have probably had the game.”

Yukon coach Kevin Patterson said the win was a fitting cap to a great season, which included a berth in the Canadian junior championships in Nova Scotia. He also praised his group for sticking together as a three-man unit.

"We had an injury in the middle of our second game here,” he said. "But the three of them have been together all year, even though weʼve had other players playing in and out.”

Following Will Klassenʼs injury, the team had a choice to continue as a trio or add a player from the Fairbanks area.

"I knew we needed to go with our core three,” Patterson said.