Dillon Dube is getting a chance to recharge before returning to the Kelowna Rockets lineup later this week and that includes a rare opportunity to spend some down time with family and friends here in Cochrane.

It has been a hectic few days for the captain of the Canada Junior team since he was draped with the Canadian flag and skated around the KeyBank Centre after winning the junior world championship. Back in Calgary from Buffalo, he caught the Calgary Flames game on Saturday night and was surrounding by media. The next day, he had a chance to visit with his teammates from the Kelowna Rockets and watched them beat the Calgary Hitmen.

Today, he briefly stopped at the Manachaban Middle School and Cochrane High School and brought the cup and his medal to share with teachers and some students as a way of thanking them for their help while he attended school here.

"At that time, we didn't know what was going to happen with my career and it was nice to take it there for everything they did for me."

Now it's time to relax because he has an early flight to catch Wednesday.

"With everything that happened since the game, it has been a whirlwind couple of days and it's just starting to sink in now," says Dube. "It feels great."

Oddly enough, it was practically the same championship matchup as when he was part of the Canadian team that won the Hlinka Memorial U18 championship against Sweden in 2016.

"It's kind of ironic how that happened and most of the guys on our team were on that team as well. It was tough for them (the Swedes), but obviously it was great for us."

Still, he says the Swedes are fast and skilled and it once again made for a close matchup.

"They might have taken it to us the first half of the game but I think the game we played wore them down and they didn't have enough gas to finish it off."

"In the last few minutes, there was a lot of motivation. It was an unbelieveable experience to share with all the 22 players on the team and all the staff. Most of them were returning people, so it was definitely an emotional time and overall it couldn't have been better than to do it with all of them."

"Honestly, we were a really deep team. I know it's really cliche to say, but we were four lines deep. I was preaching that the whole tournament and the guy that got the game winning goal (Tyler Steenburgen) was 13th forward and he couldn't have come up at any bigger time. Guys are really proud for him because he's the Golden Child; he was the 13th forward and that's incredible."

Dube put Canada on the board after a scoreless first period.

"It's probably the most memorable goal I've ever had and it's pretty incredible just to do that. It was nice to get on the board in the final game to help out the guys. Once we got that goal we started playing our game."

While he believes many other players could have filled the role, Dube says he's honoured to have been named captain. It came after he captained the WHL team in the Canada-Russian series in November.

"The world juniors just shows that every single guy could be it, it's just that I've been involved with Hockey Canada since U17 and they trusted me in the job. It definitely made my life easier with all the guys I had supporting me."

"As a kid, I was just thinking of making it and to be named captain was incredible."

Dube is looking to crack the Calgary Flames lineup in the next phase of his hockey career, but right now his focus returns to the Rockets and attempting to make another run at the Memorial Cup.

"There's still a lot of stuff I want to accomplish with Kelowna. It's my last year there and I want to enjoy my time with them, so I'm not looking past that. I want to enjoy every day there."

Friday's win was only the second time the Canadians have struck gold at the junior world championship since their five consecutive wins from 2005-2009. Last year, Dube was part of Canada's silver medal team that lost to the Americans in a shoot out.