Canada voted for their favourite!

The Pas Huskies from Manitoba win national Video Challenge contest

CALGARY , Nov. 27 /CNW/ - The minor league hockey dreams of fourteen 9- and 10-year-olds will soon be coming true: The Pas Huskies of Manitoba have won TIM-BR MART's World Junior Hockey Video Challenge and will be enjoying the games in Saskatoon, SK from December 27-29, 2009.

In what was a national sprint to the goal line, the Huskies' video was voted as the favourite of those uploaded by minor league hockey teams from across the country. As the winner, all 14 players plus coaches and parents/guardians (38 people in total) will be traveling to the 2010 World Junior Championship enjoying accommodations, meals and tickets to games as guests of TIM-BR MART. There's even a planned team appearance on centre ice where 15,000 hockey fans will see the Huskies' winning video entry (view it at www.timbrtube.ca).

Launched in September this year, the Video Challenge asked minor league hockey teams to record their team spirit, showing why they should win a trip to the 2010 World Juniors. Videos were then uploaded to timbrtube.ca and from there Canadians determined the rest by voting for their favourite. The site was quickly approaching the half-million-views mark, a testament to the power of social media which was a key component of the contest's promotion and a popular vehicle for teams to encourage voting; Facebook, twitter and the blogging community were buzzing about The Challenge.

Huskies team video entrant Rob Helstrom indicated that most of the video content was the team's idea: "We knew we wanted to make it about Canada and Team Canada , so we told the kids to come up with some ideas. By the following Sunday they had emailed 90% of the script you heard in the video." About breaking the news to the team at a recent 7:00am practice, Helstrom commented that the excitement was so high "it was difficult to get them onto the rink for the last 45 minutes of ice time!"

Said Steve Stremecki, VP of Retail Services at TIM-BR MART "Each time a new video was uploaded, we knew we'd see another example of true team spirit and a genuine passion for hockey - especially the World Juniors. We were watching the future of hockey from communities of all sizes across Canada and that made it really special for us." This was the first time TIM-BR MART held a contest of this kind and they consider it a success.

The TIM-BR MART World Junior Hockey Video Challenge is a component of TIM-BR MART's major sponsorship of the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championship. Canadians from coast to coast will be cheering Team Canada as they go for gold for the sixth consecutive year, competing against the best of the best from around the world. Now, The Pas Huskies will be joining them.

In business since 1967, TIM-BR MART represents more than 740 Dealer locations across Canada , over $2 billion in annual purchases and over $3.4 billion in retail sales. TIM-BR MART's focus is to be the buying group of choice for independent retailers, commercial dealers and manufacturers in Canada by combining their volume and purchasing at the lowest cost, understanding the needs of their Dealers, and offering a menu of value-added services. To learn more about TIM-BR MART, visit www.timbrmart.ca

/NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited members of the media/

For further information: Aimee Feaver, [email protected], [phone], [phone]