The indoor soccer season came to a close this weekend with the Yukon Soccer Club Championships (YSCC).

Seventeen teams competed across four divisions in the three-day tournament hosted at the Canada Games Centre.

"It went really well,” said Tony Gaw, head referee and technical director of the Yukon Soccer Association.

"It was just a fun tournament but it was very competitive.”

The teams competed in U10, U14, U12 and U16/18 categories.

The competitiveness reached a high point in the U10 and U14 finals as both games had to be decided in a penalty shootout.

"That shows how evenly matched the teams were,” Gaw said. "The kids had a lot of fun and shootouts are always exciting.”

The tournament was held for the second year in a row and in lieu of the temporarily disbanded Juneau Exchange tournament.

Gaw said he's hopeful that the Juneau tournament, which hasn't taken place since 2010, can be revived in the future.

"We hope to have the Juneau Exchange back again next year but we're still

working on it,” he said.

In the past usually four local squads are sent south with four Alaskan teams heading into Whitehorse.

Gaw said the benefits of the Juneau Exchange tournament come in the affordability and the competitiveness.

"It can be tough for us to get good competition,” he said.

"Generally, we go Outside and every time we do that, whether it's Vancouver or Edmonton or wherever, it usually around $1,000 a kid. If we can do the Juneau Exchange around $200 or $300 so we can get a high-level of competition for a lot cheaper.”

In the meantime, the YSCC serves as the year-end tournament with the teams being selected from a pool of nearly 190 athletes.

"We take all the players and mix them up,” said Gaw. "It's great that everything worked out so evenly. They really have a lot of fun playing together.”

On Saturday night the tournament held two showcase games, pitting the gold medal winning junior female Arctic Winter Games (AWG) team against a local ladies squad and the junior male AWG team against a men's team.

"Those games were a lot of fun and they went really well,” said Gaw.

Each team played a minimum of four games in the tournament.

"It's a good way to end the winter season and now we can take a couple of weeks off and prepare for the summer season to start,” said Gaw.

"The kids we were really excited and happy and even the teams that didn't finish first had a great time.”