Well Team Canada, you gave a valient effort, but the hundreds of thousands of fans across the country shared your downtrodden looks as you were presented with the silver medal at the IIHF World Junior Championships Tuesday night.

It's a rare occurrence for me to get as into a hockey game as I was into the world juniors, and I think for health reasons it should be my last.

With Canada two goals down, I watched from the edge of my chair, I swear I had chest pains from nervousness and hope.

Every time the puck came anywhere near the American goalie the crowd gathered at the Yukon Inn jumped out of their seats, as I'm sure was the case in pubs around the country.

Canada made an incredible comeback to push the game into overtime, on the back of superstar Jordan Eberle, who scored two goals in the final three or so minutes of the game.

It was so exciting, and I really thought we could win, just like we did on New Years.

I quite like Eberle, and once he starts playing for the Edmonton Oilers I may have to switch my allegiance from Calgary and Vancouver to Edmonton and Vancouver, which I'm sure will be a huge deal for the hockey fans of Alberta.

I may be mutinied.

But the cool thing about Eberle is, the first hockey game I ever covered for an actual newspaper on my practicum, was the WHL's Kootenay Ice out of Cranbrook B.C. vs. the Regina Pats, and Eberle was the Pats' star player. It was almost exactly a year ago, before Eberle had officially been scooped up by the Oilers, but while he was being scouted.

Eberle and the Pats downed the Kootenay Ice, my hometown team. I can't remember the score, but I remember I hung that newspaper page on my wall at school when I got back and only took it down once I got hired to a paper full time. I still have it somewhere.

What I really enjoyed about the juniors, was it truly was a Canadian team. I find it harder to get into NHL games because many of the players aren't really from Canada, even though they play for Canadian teams. This is why I cheer for the Flames and the Canucks – both the team's captains, Jarome Iginla and Roberto Luongo are actually Canadian.

So while the Canadian Junior team didn't get the gold this year to make it their sixth in a row, we did get a medal, a well-deserved silver. You could tell on the faces of all the Canadian junior players that they were stunned to see anything but gold around their necks. To be fair, the rest of Canada was shocked too, but it made us look forward the Olympics.

The juniors gave us a glimpse of what kind of hockey we can expect from the upcoming Olympics – which as my very smart mother said, we are sure to win now since we lost the juniors.

As I said before, I find it hard to get into a hockey game, unless it is a team made up of all Canadians, so I am really looking forward to the Olympics – if I can handle watching.

While watching the new years showdown between the Canadian and U.S. juniors, my mother and I were forced to turn it off when the U.S. stretched to a two goal lead. It was simply too much to bear.

When Canada downed Slovakia 8-2 there was so much time to celebrate as goal after goal came in, but against the U.S. it was all nerves, pleading and bargaining to the hockey gods that we would make a comeback.

I just don't think I can handle that again Team Canada.

My plea to the very talented members of the Canadian Olympic team, both men and women, is that they keep us on the edge of our seats like the juniors did, but try not to cause any heart attacks from fellow hockey fans such as myself.

I also ask that they bring us back that gold medal, if its not too much.

When things get tough in the tournament, just think of the sad faces of Taylor Hall, Eberle, Colten Teubert and Andrew Pietrangelo for inspiration, and imagine what they would look like on Sydney Crosby, Scott Niedermayer, Martin Brodeur and the rest of them.

There are a few upcoming hockey games in Whitehorse that I'm really excited about as well.

It starts tomorrow night with the Whitehorse Huskies playing their second set of home games against the Paradise Hill Hawks, of Saskatchewan.

The game starts at 8:30 p.m., followed on Saturday at 6:15 p.m.

Last time the Huskies played they split the series against the Powell River Regals.

Since then the team has worked on conditioning and coach Randy Merkel has been in discussions with a few Outside players to join the team.

Tickets are available at the Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters and Sports North for $12.

Also coming up on Jan. 19 and 20, is the Yukon Hockey Challenge, when Whitehorse will host two of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League's top teams, the Fernie Ghostriders and the Creston Valley Thundercats. The KIJHL is a Junior B league.

The games will be an exciting homecoming for four Whitehorse players now playing for the Thundercats.

Tickets for those games are $12 and are available at Sport Yukon, Sports North and Shirley's Concession at Takhini Arena.