CALGARY — Canadian lugers will ride the momentum from a three-medal weekend as far as they can through the rest of the World Cup season.

Team relay members Alex Gough, Sam Edney and doubles sliders Tristan Walker and Justin Snith finished just an eyeblink behind the Germans on Saturday.

It was the inaugural World Cup relay event here, and the Germans claimed a track record of 2:21.146 on the final run of a sunny afternoon, edging the Canadians (2:21.187) into second and Austrians (2:21.589) to third.

But the Canadians weren’t bemoaning a third silver medal produced during what has been a comfortable and successful stop on home ice.

“I think it will be an advantage to have a solid weekend here for the entire rest of the season,” said Walker, “because we know we can do it.

“We can have, we have had good runs everywhere. Just because it’s a home track doesn’t mean the equipment is running any faster or slower. We know we’re in the mix as long as we have the consistent runs. I think that can come with us all the way to the Olympics, for sure.”

The team relay, according to Gough, is the “best thing that’s happened to luge in the last 20 years.”

Each country’s female slider is on track first, crosses the finish line and bashes a hanging paddle with a hand or hands to open the start gate up top for that country’s male slider. Doubles teams finish off each country’s run.

Walker and Snith came out of the 14th and final turn on Saturday basically on one runner and had to pull themselves back into position for Walker to hit the paddle.

“It’s a little freaky,” said Walker. “Sometimes you can come out of 14 and the fastest line is to take a wall immediately after the finish line because you’re cutting metres and moving yourself to the finish line as fast as you can.

“All of a sudden, in the relay there are consequences for not coming out of 14 straight. Put it in the bank. Learn from it. It’s scary when it happens. We hit the bottom there and almost tipped back the other way. I had to do a pretty big reach for the (paddle).”

He pulled it off and the Canadians are able to leave here for the next World Cup stop in Lake Placid on a team-wide high. Their best results were three silvers, two fourths and a sixth. Not too shabby.

“It’s something that we really needed as a group,” said Edney, “and we also kind of expected it. This is our home track. We need to have those results. We need to show we have the right things in place.

“Looking forward, we can take this momentum and really build on it. Just know that in the right conditions and when we feel confident on the sled, good things can happen.”

dbarnes@postmedia.com