They weren't supposed to be in it, but they were.

And then they let it slip away.

Team Yukon had hundreds of people in the hometown crowd on the edge of their seats Sunday afternoon in men's hockey action at Takhini Arena, as they fought back from a 4-1 deficit and made it 4-3 against Nova Scotia in the second period.

Even after Nova Scotia made it 5-3 late in the second, the momentum still seemed to be in favour of the Yukon, as the local youngsters enjoyed several scoring opportunities, limiting the team from the East Coast to just a couple.

But that's as close as it would get for Team Yukon, which seemed to come apart at the seams in the third, thanks in large part to their lengthy parade to the penalty box. Four power-play opportunities gave Nova Scotia all the help they would need, en route to a 10-4 victory.

'Penalties killed us,' stated Yukon defenceman and team captain Alex McDougall. 'In the end, that was our downfall.'

'We have to tighten up on our penalty killing, and even more so, on our discipline,' agreed head coach Mike Young. 'Obviously, it's disheartening, but at the same time, we're proud of ourselves because we were in there.'

Yukon goaltender Ian Perrier, who had a great game against Quebec Saturday, wasn't as pleased with his personal performance against Nova Scotia.

Perrier shouldered a lot of the blame for Sunday's loss when talking to the media, but Young was quick to back up his goaltender.

'We hung him out to dry. I'm sure there were some shots he would have loved to get back, but at the end of the day, we still didn't score enough for the win.'

Asked if he thought about putting in backup Mitch Heynen after the seventh or eighth goal, Young admitted it crossed his mind, but said in the end, he and the rest of the coaching staff decided to stick with Perrier.

It's likely Perrier will also get the next start on Wednesday, as the relegation round begins. Goaltending coach Eli Wilson, who works with the Medicine Hat Tigers, is in Whitehorse for the Canada Games and will have a chance to meet with Perrier before the next game.

'We're going to get him refocused and he'll come out and have a great game the next game,' stated Young.

Despite the loss, there were certainly some positives for Team Yukon, including a two-goal performance from forward Drew Pettitt, who said he felt good right from the warmup.

'I was pumped just to get one,' he smiled, describing both of his markers after the game.

'The second one, was just a beautiful pass by Evan Campbell. It came straight to me, I had a wide open net and it beat the goalie.'

McDougall, who was battling the flu, still managed a three-point night, notching a goal and adding two assists.

The fourth Yukon goal was scored by Fraser Love.

'Definitely, this game was better (than the first one),' said Young. 'We had two solid periods and for the most part, our intensity was quite high.'

In Saturday's game against Quebec, Team Yukon came out strong, in front of a boisterous crowd, but were obviously overmatched by a Quebec squad which featured numerous major junior hockey players and ended up winning 9-1.

Young said the game plan was to keep Quebec to the outside, which they did for the most part, but penalties once again got the hometown team in trouble, as Quebec's power-play burned them on a few occasions. Out-shot 65-14, Perrier made several big saves for the Yukon crew, keeping the score to single digits.

'We had them at 2-0 after the first and 5-0 after the second,' said Young. 'Just knowing you're playing nothing but junior hockey players ... these guys are proud.'

Kane Dawe had the first Yukon goal of the tournament, a slap shot over the goalie's shoulder in the third period.

'I was overwhelmed and excited,' said Dawe, whose bio lists three goals as his tournament wish. 'This is the best Yukon's ever done against Quebec.

'We had pretty good defence. We didn't really start clicking offensively until the second period. I would like to see more offence, dumping and chasing the puck. We started that toward the end.'

Quebec coach Andrew Tourigny said the Yukon players worked hard and forced his team to stay on top of things the entire game.

Tourigny felt his team took too many penalties, two of which resulted in misconducts a 10-minute misconduct and a game misconduct for hitting from behind. The coach chalked it up to energy and anticipation.

'Our guys were anxious to get going,' he explained. 'We've been preparing ourselves for this since Monday.

'In general, I'm happy about our performance. It's important we won that game to be well-positioned in the rest of the tournament. We want to win the gold medal.'

Tourigny was impressed with Perrier's 56-save performance, calling him 'very, very good'.

Asked about the shot barrage after Saturday's game, Perrier said the Quebec players had much better shots, and better speed, than what he's used to.

'The difference between us and them is they play faster hockey,' he said, adding Quebec was able to make a lot more crisp passes than Team Yukon.

Perrier said it wasn't hard to keep his confidence up when the crowd was going nuts every time he even touched the puck.

'The crowd was crazy. When Kane put the puck in the net, they practically blew the roof off this place. I've never heard a crowd so loud when we hadn't even scored yet.'

Pettitt gave credit to the crowd once again on Sunday, pointing out it helped the team work that much harder when they needed a boost.

He said it's important for the players to remember what an opportunity it is for them just to be here, playing in front of their family and friends, and to stay positive.

'That's what we were stressing coming in. No matter what happens in all the games, just stay positive. There's a few guys feeling down in the room, but we've got to pick them up and be a team. We have a practice now, so we can regroup then.'

It's not known yet who Team Yukon's first opponent will be in the relegation round, but regardless, there are a few things Young would like to address in practice over the next couple of days.

While discipline and penalty killing are at the top of the list, the team's power play could also use some work.

'For a while, the guys were really buying into chipping the puck in, getting deep and putting on the pressure. They've got to learn to just keep doing that,' said Young.

'We need to get a win and the sooner we can do that, the better.'