Yellowknife high school student Mario Hernandez will play U20 world championship hockey for Mexico in late January.
Hernandez has been selected for the Mexican team heading to IIHF U20 World Championship Division III A in Istanbul from January 27 to February 2.
“It means a lot,” Hernandez, who is 17, told Cabin Radio.
“It’s not every day someone gets picked to represent their country in a sport they love to play, so it’s obviously a huge honour – mostly for my parents, because they put in so much hard work and time trying to give me an opportunity in the sport.”
Hernandez has lived in Yellowknife for the past 13 years but was born in Mexico. He and his family immigrated to Canada when he was a few years old.
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“When we first got here in Yellowknife, my dad put me in soccer. That’s all he knew, right? But I was an energetic kid and it wasn’t enough, so he put me in skating, and then from there I got into hockey,” Hernandez recalled.
His dad discovered more about the Mexican national team through a friend. Hernandez said getting to wear the Mexico jersey has been an ambition since he was 12 years old.
The top level of the U20 World Championship is more commonly known as World Juniors, featuring the likes of Canada, the US and other top-level nations.
Division III is home to countries where the sport is developing. Mexico’s U20 team will face Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, New Zealand, Chinese Taipei and hosts Türkiye in the January tournament according to world governing body the IIHF’s website. The top team will be promoted to Division II B for 2026.
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Hernandez, who attends St Pat’s high school in Yellowknife, earned the right to represent Mexico through a combination of selection camps and videos he submitted featuring his performances at the likes of Arctic Winter Games and Canada Winter Games.
His first selection camp involved travelling with his mom to Mexico City. He described walking through one of the world’s most populous cities with a hockey bag – not a common sight locally – and receiving “a lot of weird stares” in return.
The ice rink at which practices took place was located within a mall, he said.
He found out he had been selected for the junior world championship in mid-December.
“Our team is actually pretty good, because almost all of our team is made up of guys from the States or from Canada,” he said.
“It’s not really players that play in Mexico, more players that were born in Mexico, but they’re playing in California or there’s some guys from Saskatchewan. I think we’ll do pretty good.”
Hernandez wants his next step after the junior world championship to be pursuing the sport at post-secondary level.
“Maybe some university or junior hockey next year would be amazing,” he said, “We’ll see when the time comes.”
