The 2019 IIHF Under-18 World Championship wasn't just a great experience for the three Moose Jaw Warriors that suited up in the tournament. Warriors general manager Alan Millar was also in Sweden, leading the management group for Team Canada after doing the same at last summer's Hlinka-Gretzky Cup in Edmonton.

This time around was a bit different for Millar, who said it was an interesting process trying to put the team together.

"We had a really good group of young men here, really good staff, our coaching staff did a very good job, but it's certainly a unique process as you're trying to put a club together as teams are eliminated from the CHL Playoffs, so there's a lot of challenges along the way trying to put a team together in short order," said Millar.

Canada ended up finishing in fourth place after losing to the United States, 5-1, in the bronze medal game on Sunday. 

Millar felt that they had a strong group that could have walked away with gold, which would have been Canada's first medal in four years at the tournament.

"The group came together quickly, we had a week of training camp in Finland, our players did a really good job of trying to build a team, build an identity and come together to play the right way," said Millar. "We got through the preliminaries fine and then we got to the final-four -- four very good teams -- and had a tough one with Sweden [in the semifinals] because we felt we were the better team and we felt we had a real good shot to get into the gold medal game, but it didn't go our way."

The Warriors had two players on Canada with Brayden Tracey and Daemon Hunt earning spots on the squad, while Yegor Buyalski suited up for Belarus, finishing in fifth place.

Millar said that all three players performed well over the course of the tournament.

"I thought Trace was good, he played on a really important line with Connor Zary from Kamloops and Jamieson Rees from Sarnia, he chipped in along the way, he battled, he wasn't 100 percent through the playoffs and did everything he could to give himself a chance in this tournament and scored some important goals," said Millar.

"It was a real good experience for an underage like Daemon to get this experience, to be at the camp and find his way onto the team. Daemon played as a sixth-seventh defenceman but he killed some penalties and played fairly regularly for a young guy and he'll really benefit from the experience.

"Buyalski was a big part of an upstart Belarus team that surprised some people early in the tournament. Yegor played in their top-six, played on their top line and got some power play time, so really good experience for Yegor as well."

There will be a lot that Millar will try to take from his experience with Hockey Canada over the past year as he continues the role next season, starting with the 2019 Hlinka-Gretzky Cup in August.

"For me, it's always an honour to be involved, I'll take a lot out of this and whenever you get these chances with elite programs and you get to work with new people, you learn lots and I'll walk away a better manager because of it," said Millar.

With the tournament in the rearview mirror, Millar will return to Canada and head to Red Deer to lead the Warriors at the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft.