Sixteen-year-old defenseman Charlie Dagostin will be representing Canada at the 8th International Summer Challenge in Philadelphia in July.

"It's an honour to be asked to play on a Team Canada team, especially in a U.S. tournament. It's a first for me, definitely,” said Dagostin, who represented the Yukon at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax.

Dagostin is one of 13 Yukoners recently selected to compete in the elite tournament in Pennsylvania based on his performance at the OneHockey Spring Challenge held in Spruce Grove, Alta., from May 6-8.

Yukoners Bryce Anderson, Lukas Jirousek, Jesse McCuaig, Kane Comin, Matt Butler, Tomas Jirousek, Delean McCuaig, Wyatt Gale, Riley Pettit, Trevor Whynot, Dagostin, Matt McCarthy and Chris Anderson have all been named to Team Canada, from age groups ranging from 2001-born players to those born in 1995.

Whynot, 16, will represent the '95 Canadian team in Philadelphia.

"It's pretty exciting being one of the only guys from Whitehorse in the '95 division going,” said Whynot, who played with the Whitehorse Midget Mustangs this season.

These 13 are part of the 40 Whitehorse-based players who train with Jakub Jirousek's All Out Hockey school, and who represented the program as members of the Capitals Club Teams competing in Spruce Grove.

The Caps sent three teams of players born in '99, '96 and '95 to Wild Rose Country.

The '96 team – with pickups from Alberta and Ontario – won their division, while the '95 team, which also picked up Outside players, took third and the all-Yukon '99s settled for fourth.

Whynot said working with Jirousek's program has elevated his game.

"It was high paced, it was moving your feet,” the forward said of the caliber in Spruce Grove.

"Getting bigger and stronger and working so hard, putting in all the hours, has really helped me go a long way.”

That's the name of the game, Jirousek said, noting that he's been working with many of the players for the past three years.

"But this was the first test where they got to be in the room – especially the '95s, '96s – with guys who are where they want to be, the AAA level. They saw it – it's not that far of a difference. We can play with these guys, and it showed; we had guys who were scoring winning goals,” Jirousek said.

Teams descended on Spruce Grove from as far away as Texas and Illinois.

Jirousek said the mentality heading into the tournament was to elevate the players' game by playing with and against top players.

"What we did is, lets give them the competition and see what they got. And the hope is to continue giving them the competition more and more often, instead of dropping down to our tier three levels where we always go; we always come down to tier three as a minor hockey association, because we have to, but I'd like to push them, at least once or twice a year, to go up a level, see what we've got,” Jirousek said.

Daryl Belfry, who does skill development with NHL superstars like Patrick Kane and John Tavares, coached the '99 Yukon team after holding sessions at the Canada Games Centre in December.

Bringing in coaches at this level, and being exposed to the high level the players saw in Alberta, has helped 14-year-old Cole Morris along.

"Without this program I wouldn't be where I am right now. I probably wouldn't be still playing hockey,” Morris said.

Blaine Anderson, manager with the '99 team, said Belfry remarked on the improvement of the Yukon players between December and May.

Anderson echoed Jirousek's theory about improving Yukon players.

"(Jirousek's) theory is, lets take our top guys, lets put them with better guys and play them against better guys so it brings up their game,” Anderson said. "In the tournament, the Yukon guys were a little tentative in the first few games, but by the end of the tournament, the coaches could really roll all three lines, and you could see the confidence of the Yukon guys was really growing, the puck patience was a lot greater.”