Color of Hockey: Baez, Guerra, Hernandez friendly collegiate rivals

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, as part of NHL.com's celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, he profiles Joey Baez, Matt Guerra and Randy Hernandez, friends from Florida who grew up playing with or against each other and now face each other regularly in NCAA Division I hockey with Army, Holy Cross and Canisius University.

Joey Baez, Matt Guerra and Randy Hernandez have a bond forged by Florida, hockey and their Hispanic heritage.

The three forwards played with and against each other on elite Florida youth and summer tournament teams growing up, despite being from different parts of the state.

“Randy’s out of Miami and I’m in Orlando, so it was a little bit of a travel to play with him,” Guerra said. “Joey and I played together for five, six years. He’s one of my best friends.”

Now they are friendly rivals in NCAA Division I hockey, where they are among the scoring leaders on their respective teams in the Atlantic Hockey Association.

Baez is a 23-year-old junior at the United States Military Academy at West Point, who led Army with 21 goals last season and tied for second among NCAA players with 12 power-play goals.

Guerra, a 24-year-old senior at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, was third on the team in scoring with 23 points (seven goals, 16 assists) in 41 games and was tied for the team lead in assists.

Hernandez is a 24-year-old senior at Canisius University in Buffalo. A former member of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, he had 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in 40 games and was fourth in scoring for Canisius.

“We match up quite a bit against each other,” Guerra said. “My line matched up with Randy’s line in the conference championship last year, and then Joey and I are always on the ice together when we play West Point. It’s pretty fun to play against a guy you played with for so many years and then to be able to go home in the summer and give each other some (trash talk).”

John Arceo, youth hockey coordinator at the Kendall Ice Arena in Miami and an assistant coach for Miami-Dade High School, said Baez, Guerra and Hernandez thriving in Division I hockey shows how much the sport has evolved in Florida and in the Hispanic community.

“For them to be who they are and to get to that level of hockey, it shows how the game has expanded for everybody, becoming available to a lot more kids,” Arceo said.

Guerra agrees.

“I think it says a lot to be able to expand kind of outside the typical baseball, football kind of path lines in Florida and the Hispanic community,” he said. “I think it says a lot for people who want to branch out. They can play any sport and be successful at it.

“The nice thing about Florida is you get as much ice time as you need. There's not a ton of people on the ice, so it's really nice to be able to just get out there and work on your skills when you don't have team practices. … You can just kind of go out there, stick and puck, skate and shoot, kind of work on your game. I think that's how the three of us really got to the college level, being on the ice a whole lot more than a lot of other people are able to in the country.”

It seems the three always have had each other to lean on during their hockey journeys. Guerra and Hernandez, who each is Cuban American, were teammates and roommates at Robert Morris University in 2020-21.

“I remember when I roomed with him, he (Guerra) was always like a big gamer guy, listening to music, always dancing, good vibes around him,” said Hernandez, who was the 2020-21 AHA Western Pod rookie of the year after he had 25 points (11 goals, 14 assists) in 24 games for Robert Morris. “On the ice, he competes really hard. He’s always trying to make those silky plays, so you really have to look out for those and be really aware. He’s done that all the time, since we were little kids.

“We’d always go 1-on-1 battles when we were down in Florida. I had to watch out for him, he had to watch out for me. It was fun.”

The two transferred after Robert Morris announced in May 2021 it was cutting its men’s and women’s Division I hockey programs.

Guerra hit the NCAA transfer portal for Holy Cross, and Hernandez left for Canisius. However, the demise of Robert Morris hockey was brief; the university has resumed men’s and women’s hockey this season.

Guerra also is the tie that binds the three to Baez. Besides playing together as kids, Baez and Guerra were teammates with Lone Star of the North American Hockey League from 2018-20.

“He’s one of my best friends,” said Baez, whose late father, Pete, was Puerto Rican. “A real good player.”

Guerra said he was the one who wooed Baez to play junior hockey in Texas. The Tampa native responded by leading the NAHL in goals (32) in 2019-20 and was seventh in points (58) in 53 games.

The Florida friends said they’re looking forward to the opening of the AHA season Saturday to see who’ll end up with team and personal bragging rights.

“Every time I play Joe, we’ll talk, we’ll have dinner before the game or something like that,” Guerra said. “And then as soon as the game starts, we go at it just like we would against anybody else on those teams.

“We’re obviously extremely close, best friends,” Guerra said. “But once we get on the ice, we’re trying to win, we’re trying to help our team.”