Color of Hockey: Puerto Rico making strides, building national program

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 Sept. 15-Oct. 15, he profiles the growth of the Puerto Rico Ice Hockey Association.

Scott Vargas never envisioned himself as a building contractor.

But there the president of the Puerto Rico Ice Hockey Association was last week, helping to oversee construction of an inline hockey rink at Summit Arenales Academy in San Juan that the organization plans to make the hub of an inline hockey league on the United States island territory.

“We’ve been down here for the last two, three weeks trying to really get things going,” Vargas said. “We finally got our hockey boards and our inline hockey floor on the location, and now we have to do some work to do before we bring it inside.”

Vargas may not be a hammer-and-nail guy, but he’s been quite the builder when it comes to the PRHIA, which is dedicated to promoting and expanding hockey within the Puerto Rican community throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. Since he founded it in May 2020, the PRIHA has grown from 11 athletes to more than 600 stretched across the United States and Canada and Puerto Rico.

The PRIHA had the largest presence at the 2025 Amerigol LATAM Cup that took place Aug. 17-24 at Florida Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs and Palm Beach Skate Zone in Wellington, Florida, with 140 players competing in three men’s divisions, two women’s divisions, and Under-12, Under-14 and Under-16 brackets. They came away with bronze medals in men’s and women’s Division I and men’s Division III play.

The LATAM Cup was just part of a whirlwind 2024-25 season. Puerto Rico’s men’s team won the 2025 Development Cup, a six-team tournament sanctioned by the International Ice Hockey Federation for its associate member nations that was held in Canillo, Andorra, in April. Puerto Rico went 5-0-0 and outscored host Andorra, Brazil, Greece, Liechtenstein and Portugal 52-5.

“It was just a huge jump for a lot a lot of guys that had been playing on the team for a while to get that kind of exposure, and it was nice to win the whole thing, too,” said Rick Rodriguez, a defenseman from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, who captained the Development Cup team. “For a lot of the older guys, we know what it means when you put that jersey on, representing your heritage and being able to do it in another country, especially with the fan base they had in Andorra. A lot of them were trying to meet us and learn about Puerto Rico.”

Puerto Rico’s women’s team earned a silver medal in the IIHF’s inaugural Women’s 3x3 Series in Sao Paulo, held November 7-13. Puerto Rico lost 7-3 to Argentina in the championship game in a tournament that also featured host Brazil and Colombia.

“It was definitely a different style because we were playing 3x3, which means there was less rooms for mistakes, and there were different rules,” said Allegra Jenkins, a 16-year-old forward/defenseman from Exeter, New Hampshire. “But it was super fun. We got to represent Puerto Rico in a new way since this was the first 3x3 event, and it was a great honor.”

The Puerto Rican men won gold and the women took silver at the 2025 Amerigol LATAM Cup Spring Classic, hosted by the Vegas Golden Knights at America First Center in Henderson, Nevada, the practice facility of Vegas’ American Hockey League affiliate, March 19-22.

Puerto Rico men’s and women’s squads were among 16 teams representing 12 countries at the Dream Nations Cup at the Rink at American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey, held May 27-June 1. PRHIA teams also participated in the Challenger Series in Chicago and Montreal May 8-July 13. The men faced Greece, Jamaica and Lebanon. The women’s bracket included Greece and a team comprised of players from across North America.

“We’re trying to give as many opportunities for our athlete members to compete and represent Puerto Rico as possible, that’s first and foremost,” said Vargas, a 34-year-old Tampa, Florida, native who played NCAA Division III hockey at Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan, from 2012-15 and in Finland from 2015-17. “It's opportunities, repetitions, it's competition for us. And what is the point of all that? The point is preparation for the ultimate goal, which is competing in a world championship.”

When PRIHA members weren’t skating, they were marching. Vargas said more than 100 participated in New York’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade on June 8, several wearing their distinctive jerseys with the Puerto Rican star and stripes on the sides.

“And this year we opened it up and invited other Puerto Rican winter sports athletes, which was super cool,” Vargas said. “We had a cool kid, Stephen Cunio, a freestyle skier who’s trying to get to the 2030 Winter Olympics, and Jose Sepulveda, the president of the Puerto Rico Curling Federation. We’ve participated in events in Chicago, Florida and Massachusetts. Our whole thing is, like, ‘Let’s partner up with community groups in those diaspora areas and let’s partner up with NHL franchises.”

Puerto Rico has been an IIHF associate member since September 29, 2022. It isn’t a full member and can’t compete in IIHF world championships because the island currently doesn’t have a permanent indoor operational ice rink, per federation rules. The Aguadilla Ice Skating Arena, which opened in 2005 and was the only ice skating facility in the Caribbean, was damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and hasn't reopened.

The Coliseo de Puerto Rico Jose Miguel Argelot in San Juan, where the New York Rangers defeated the Florida Panthers 3-2 in the first and only NHL game played on the island, on Sept. 23, 2006, has ice-making ability but is a large multi-use venue.

Vargas said the PRIHA is working toward getting a rink in Puerto Rico, looking at potential sites and searching for investors to help build it. He said the IIHF associate membership and attending the federation’s annual conferences has been beneficial in the PRIHA’s efforts to grow hockey.

“While we’re not voting members, we have a voice,” Vargas said. “That community, what they call the international hockey family, it sounds cliche, sounds a little, ‘Whatever, it’s not true.’ But it really is. It’s a very supportive group. It goes from the titans of the hockey world down to the developing nations. You’re able to engage in conversation, share in best practices.”

A conversation with one IIHF delegate from Colombia, another federation associate member country, helped the PRIHA locate the flooring for the 85-foot by 50-foot inline rink Vargas says will play a vital role in eventually producing ice hockey players from the island.

“It’s a small surface but a huge step forward,” he said. “We're going to be doing 3-on-3 for the adult group, and we're going to play with the 3-on-3 IIHF rules. For the youth, we will probably have the same rule set, but we'll do it with 4-on-4. Over time, their skills will grow, they’ll be able to operate in tight spaces, and it will raise their awareness of the game, develop hockey IQ.”