Matt Neumann says it's the most impressive box built to carry a medal he's ever seen.
The contents aren't so bad either.
The bronze medal he won Saturday at the Canada Winter Games as the anchor skier for Team B.C. in the men's 4 X 5km cross-country relay is a souvenir he will cherish the rest of his life.
In the last nordic skiing event of the Halifax Games, Neumann, a 21-year-old product of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club in Prince George, came within a whisker of turning that bronze into silver.
"It was super-exciting for me," said Neumann. "We were within a second of a silver medal. It's a situation you kind of hope for all year, you just hope to win it."
Alberta was heavily favoured in the relay and came through with the expected gold medal. But it was a dogfight for the other two medal spots between Quebec, B.C., Ontario and the Yukon, and with the finish line in sight, tienne Richard of Quebec and Neumann were neck-and-neck with each other.
"He's a faster sprinter than me and he dropped me 1.5 kilometres from the finish, but I started catching up with about 600 metres left," said Neumann. "The biggest thing I've been working on in the last couple years is sprinting and thinking clearly in those situations. It's a fast downhill into the stadium and he made a fairly wide step-turn and looked back to his left and he didn't see me. There was a big headwind and I was tucked in right behind.
"I took the outside lane and he took the middle and I think if I took the middle lane I'm 99 per cent certain I would have been second. I just didn't have enough speed to take the best lane."
Quebec (52:38.40) finished nine-tenths of a second ahead of B.C. (52:39.30). Alberta clocked 52:24.80.
The course was pelted with steady rain on Friday and it froze overnight at Ski Martock, which made for fast conditions. The slopes were also quick for Neumann's first Games race on Monday, when he finished fifth in the 10km freestyle individual race. It was the highlight of his week.
"That was the closest race to 100 per cent I've ever had," Neumann said. "Fifth place, that was definitely the best result I could have asked for. The three Albertans (gold medalist Kevin Sandau, bronze-medalist Jesse Cockney, and fourth-place Graeme Killick) are really strong. In the back of my mind I was hoping for the podium, but that would have been the race of my life.
"It was an easy course to ski but a hard course to race. I'm kind of into grinding courses and there weren't a lot of ups and downs. Every chance you had to go hard, you did. It's just good to race guys who are at a higher level than you are. This is one of the most competitive years for cross-country and it just worked out there were a lot of fast guys here."
Neumann placed 15th in the 15km classic race at the Games and was 23rd in the sprints. His 19-year-old brother Aaron also won a Games bronze medal on the last day of competition in the biathlon relay.
Coming off shoulder surgery last spring, Matt Neumann started out the season as a biathlete but decided to tackle more cross-country races to raise the calibre of his skiing. Neumann plans to compete in the cross-country national championships in mid-March in Canmore, where he now makes his home, and will also enter the biathlon national championships at the end of March in Charlo, N.B.
"That will decide the national (biathlon) team for next year," he said.
"This has been a challenging year for me," he said. "I'm less orientated on results and more focused on getting better and bridging the gap to the senior level.
"This has been one of the hardest financial seasons for me. I'm right on the edge of national carding and this season would not be possible without the financial support I get from Pacific Western Brewery."
