On November 6, 1987, he was announced as an assistant coach to Dave Chambers on the Canada men's national junior ice hockey team, to replace Clément Jodoin who joined the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Canadian juniors travelled to Moscow for the 1988 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, and won the gold medal with a record of six wins and a draw. Canadian author Gare Joyce described Bégin as the easy-going part of the "&lt;a href="good%20cop/bad%20cop"&gt;good cop/bad cop&lt;/a&gt;" duo of the team's assistant coaches, compared to Ken Hitchcock.