Max Melvin-McNutt's goal was to reach the snowboarding halfpipe finals at the Canada Winter Games.

For roughly 30 minutes, he failed.

So he and his teammates thought.

"I was so depressed,” he laughed. "It was so depressing. I was so close too! I thought I got 12th and everything, but they messed up.”

Melvin-McNutt was in 13th – one spot out of the finals – after his two qualifying runs.

It wasn't until 10 minutes before the warm up for the finals that he realized the score marked down onsite was wrong.

"I was pretty bummed out, because the lady at the top (messed) up writing the scores on the board, so I was pretty (upset) because I really wanted to be on TSN and everything. And then my coach told me that they (messed) up the score and I was in the final. I was really happy. I was really happy,” Melvin-McNutt said.

So was his entire team, Snowboard Yukon head coach Mary Binsted added.

"We were all in the lodge having lunch feeling a little glum that we had missed our goal, which was to get a rider into the finals, and we just did our due diligence and checked the official results and saw that we were in fact there, so it was a pretty exciting moment for the entire team; everyone grouped around Max and it really felt like a team victory,” Binsted said.

Melvin-McNutt jumped from 12th to eighth overall with a score of 24.10 (best of two runs) in the finals.

Seven-twenty. Five-forty. Switch 360.

This is all without there being a halfpipe to train on in the Yukon.

"For top halfpipe riders in all of Canada, and me not having a halfpipe and being able to make finals and beat a lot of dudes that have halfpipe all the time – I was pretty stoked,” he said.

"I impressed myself with my run that I pulled off in the end.”

Where other athletes clam up in big competitions, Melvin-McNutt revels.

Neither the cameras or the competition altered his focus.

"I really like to perform well in competition, so that's it, it's that drive,” Melvin-McNutt said. "I got a lot more air in the finals.”

Binsted said he clearly rose to the occasion.

"Max's runs were phenomenal,” Binsted said. "He's the sort of person that really excels in competition, so he always exceeds his training runs when it comes time to deliver.”

Binsted has been working with Melvin-McNutt for three years.

The Canada Games are the highest level of competition they've competed in.

But Melvin-McNutt holds high standards for himself regardless of the competition, she added.

"Every competition he really wants to win and he's really able to focus on the task at hand; and he's really pushed by performing for the judges and for the crowds – we had TV coverage yesterdays, so that really lit the fire for him,” she said.

Yukoner Alexander Chishome finished 20th overall and Thomas Babington Macaulay Mills took 22nd.

On the women's side, Kayla Gabrielle Hallonquist finished 14th and Lara Bellon finished 16th.

The team trained today for the snowboardcross competition tomorrow.