TORONTO, ON -- ITECH - The Face of Hockey, Hockey Canada and Crayola Canada are pleased to announce that Alanna La Rose (age 18) of Edmonton, Alberta and Sarah Mizzi (age 11) of Barrie, Ontario have won the Team Canada "Design-A-Mask Contest" for the 2005 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship being held in North Dakota and Minnesota from December 25th to January 4th.

La Rose and Mizzi's designs were chosen from over 800 entries that were received from across the nation, exceeding last year's entry total, and making the contest again a huge success.

Team Canada's two goaltenders at the 2005 IIHF World Junior Championship will each don a custom-made ITECH goalie mask with Alanna and Sarah's design.

Apart from the thrill of having Team Canada's goalies wear their designs at this prestigious global hockey event, Alanna and Sarah will also receive their very own custom-painted ITECH goalie mask, which will be autographed by members of the Canadian National Junior Team.

The Team Canada Design-A-Mask Contest included two separate age categories: 12 & older and 11 & under. Contestants, who had to be Canadian residents and 18 years old or younger to participate, were asked to design a mask that reflected a Canadian theme and included the Hockey Canada logo.

With such an abundance of great entries, 8 designs were chosen as "runner-up" winners and have been selected to receive special ITECH prize packages. They include:

• Maria Do (age 12)
• Thomas Kalisz (age 18)
• Frankie Corrado (age 12)
• Mykela Segboer (age 10)
• Hunter Shinkaruk (age 10)
• Tyler Wiebe (age 10)
• Laurie Gagne (age 18)
• Andrew Stobbe (age 9)

Congratulations once again to all our finalists and winners. Be sure to visit hockeycanada.ca and itech.com in the upcoming weeks to view all these exciting designs, and be sure to enter next year's Design-A-Mask contest for your chance to make Canadian hockey history!

Also, be sure to tune in to TSN/RDS on December 25th as Canada will take on Slovakia in its first game of the 2005 World Juniors at 4:30pm ET / 1:30pm PT. Cheer on Canada on their quest for gold!