Just last week, Jean "Junior" Gélinas was displaying his table hockey talents at a shopping mall back home in Trois-Rivières. This weekend, he hits the big time - defending this country's honour as the lone Canuck at the largest table hockey tourney in the world, the Swedish Masters.

"I play here for Canada," the 26-year-old printing company estimator says over the phone from Stockholm, "not only for me."

He joins some 250 competitors at the table hockey classic, most of them from Europe. As many as 150 tables will be in play simultaneously under the lights of the Globe Arena, a mass of plastic players gliding around faux rinks as competitors taut with playoff anxieties slam and twist rods to victory or defeat. At stake is the prestigious SM Cup.

Junior Gélinas' quest for table hockey supremacy is a formidable one. This is his first international competition and he faces the best players the game has ever produced. He has already practised for the big weekend against one of the most skilled: A Swede named Hans Österman, a twenty-something two-time world champion famous for his tactical skills and amazing control of the plastic puck.

"He killed me," Mr. Gélinas confesses. "I have to do better defensively and I have to put the puck in the corners. But I'm getting lots of practise with the Americans."

In the days leading up to the start of the tournament today, Mr. Gélinas is holed up an apartment in Stockholm he is sharing with the three competitors from the United States, playing for six or seven hours a day in preparation for the two-day championship.

It is not surprising that he is the only Canadian at the Swedish Masters. Canada have never been all that strong in international table hockey competition, despite the fact the game was invented in this very country - not to mention that it has been played by generations of countless youngsters hunkered down in the basements from one end of the nation to the other.

Europeans, it turns out, are more serious about the rec room shinny.

"Sweden has always dominated the world of table hockey," says David Andersson, a table hockey enthusiast in Sweden and one of the organizers of the competition. Swedes have held a lock on the world championship titles since 1989 and secured the top four spots at the Swedish Masters over the entire span of its 20-year history.

One man from Quebec City is determined to change that.

Frustrated by the Swedish sense of superiority in the game, Alain Gagnon decided to try to raise the level of respect for the game in Canada. He is a passionate promoter of table hockey as well as a long-time player.

The 52-year-old who spends his days as a rehab worker has taken on the sideline of managing Mr. Gélinas, seeking out corporate sponsorships for his player without much success so far. And a fundraiser at a Trois-Rivières mall last weekend that saw Mr. Gélinas take on all comers, mounted only $120.

Mr. Gagnon has also made it his mission to champion the game in Canada. He hopes to raise the profile of the game, make it more respectable, shed the "boyish toy" image of the game.

Indeed, players would like very much to do the same.

''This isn't child's play,'' Steve Bernstein, a 48-year-old top-ranked U.S. player told the Boston Globe recently. ''This takes just as much skill, talent, and precision as the real sport. Like anything, practise makes perfect. The more time you spend on it, the better you'll be.''

Mr. Gagnon set out to champion the game after seeing a film clip where a Swede bad-mouthed Canadian talent.

"I got so mad," Mr. Gagnon says. "The Swedes were saying we suck at table hockey."

At stake, he says, is this country's honour. He believes one of the reasons Swedes have always come out on top is because they have only one kind of board to master while 15 to 20 versions of table hockey have been available on the Canadian market.

Table hockey was invented by a Torontonian Donald Munro, who devised the game during the Depression to help carry his three children through the desperate days of the era. The out-of-work restauranteur sold early versions of the game through the Eaton's catalogue.

As the popularity of the game grew, he set up a factory to produce them. Though Munro Game Ltd. is no longer in business, tens of thousands of table hockey games are still selling in North America by major manufacturers like Irwin Toy and Stiga, a Swedish company that is sponsoring of this weekend's event.

Table hockey has prevailed through the ages in no small measure due to the popularity of hockey itself. For some, the miniature version is a substitute.

"If you love hockey and you can't skate - or if you are too old to play in the NHL - you can do this," Mr. Gagnon says. "You get a kick so close to hockey you won't believe it."

That's what snagged Mr. Gélinas. He played ice hockey for a time growing up in his native Shawinigan, but a defect in his spine eventually made it impossible to continue. It wasn't long before he became hooked on the table version, facing off against relatives and becoming so enthralled he began enrolling in tourneys.

He's never looked back. He owns more than a dozen games and normally practises about 10 hours a week, though he has cut back on his playing lately to help his wife, who is pregnant with their second child.

He is known as a quiet, thoughtful player. While some competitors yell, curse, gesture wildly or even talk to the plastic players under the stress of the game, he remains calm, focused, deliberate.

And he knows his game has to improve before he could even dream of winning the Swedish Masters. His hope this time around is to be one of the 24 players to make it to Sunday's finals.

"I play with my heart," he says. "I'm not the most talented, but I play hard. I try to do something the opponent doesn't see or expect."