The Yukon's male hockey team has officially come back down to earth after starting the Canada Winter Games with a historic three straight wins in the round robin.

Yesterday, they dropped a 13-3 decision to New Brunswick.

A slow start again cost them in that game, as New Brunswick's Sam Allaby opened the scoring just 58 seconds into the contest.

New Brunswick piled it on from there, taking a 5-0 lead into the dressing room after the first period.

New Brunswick scored four straight goals in the second to open up a 9-0 lead.

Yukon finally got on the board with 1:32 left in the second, as Gavin McKenna ripped a shot between the New Brunswick goalie's legs from long distance.

McKenna followed that up with a rebound goal with just 28 seconds left in the period, making it 9-2 at the end of the second.

Unfortunately for the Yukon, Liam Kilfoil, who had a strong game for New Brunswick, scored just 11 seconds into the third period to put New Brunswick up 10-2.

Jase Johnstone got that back quickly less than a minute later, as McKenna set him up with a dandy pass.

That would be all the scoring for the Yukon, however. New Brunswick added three more goals in the latter half of the third period to put the game away.

Today's game for ninth place against Newfoundland and Labrador was much closer.

Yukon got behind early again, with N.L.'s Noah Boland scoring 1:37 into the game and adding a second straight goal with 14:14 left in the period.

Captain McKenna answered quickly with a goal on a rebound just 14 seconds later to get Yukon on the board.

N.L. went up 3-1 with 9:23 left in the first on a point shot from Carter Bromley.

Goalie Ashton Fummerton made a big point-blank save with a few minutes left in the frame to keep the game close.

The first period ended with N.L. up 3-1.

Yukon was showing a lot of spark in this one, as there was a big scuffle involving most of the players on both teams at the end of the period.

Just nine seconds into the second, a Yukon player hit the post.

Yukon drew closer with 13:36 left in the second when Jase Johnstone scored on a shot that barely trickled over the line. That prompted the N.L. coach to call a timeout.

That seemed to work, as N.L. started to pull away in the second period. Declan Kennedy scored with 11:50 left, then Ben O'Brien made it 5-2 with 3:15 left in the period. They added one more with 2:46 left in the second frame. The period ended 6-2 for N.L..

Of note, McKenna and Johnstone had a chat with the refs at the end of the period. Perhaps that helped in the third as they finally got a power play a few minutes into the period.

Johnstone pulled Yukon closer with a goal with 10:18 to go in the third.

However, Brody Harnum restored N.L.'s four-goal lead with 8:09 to go.

The game got rough again with 5:09 left, as a big skirmish broke out on the ice. No gloves were dropped however, and the game carried on.

In a classy move, Yukon coach Ken Anderson replaced Fummerton in goal with Sam Epp following the skirmish.

The final score in the competitive,feisty affair was N.L. 7, Yukon 3.

Meanwhile, the female curling team returned to action against Manitoba in their early game. Down 8-1 halfway through the draw, skip Taylor Legge found the house in the sixth end to score four for the Yukon. The team couldn’t find the tie at the end of the eighth end, making the final score 8-5. In their second game of the day, Team Yukon fell 9-3 to host P.E.I.

The men’s and women’s quartets closed the door to the squash courts for the team competition. The men played Manitoba and the women played Saskatchewan, both dropping their matches 4-0.

The rest of the teams spent the day training, and in the case of the freestyle team, travelling. They have crossed the Confederation Bridge into New Brunswick and

Crabbe Mountain for the moguls competition on Friday.

– With files from a Team Yukon press release.