CANTON — SUNY Canton’s Alma Ameigeiras became the first Argentine ice hockey player from her home country to play ice hockey at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) level. The freshman from Buenos Aires, Argentina accomplished the feat when she suited up for the Roos NCAA Division III women’s ice hockey team in a 1-1 tie against No. 3/2 nationally-ranked Nazareth University on Oct. 30.

Ameigeiras grew up in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, where the most popular sport is soccer.

“In Argentina, in every home there’s a soccer ball,” Ameigeiras said. “We would always play soccer during school breaks.”

When she was 10 years old Ameigeiras first discovered the sport of inline hockey. Inline hockey, also known as roller hockey, is a fast-paced team sport played on a hard, smooth surface – such as concrete or asphalt – where players use inline skates instead of ice skates to shoot a puck or ball into an opponent’s net.

“I had moved to a new neighborhood with my dad and while searching for sports to do around the area we found roller hockey,” Ameigeiras said. “I already knew how to roller blade, so I tried it, and immediately fell in love with it.”

As she continued to grow up, she participated in more tournaments, hockey trips and started to play with higher divisions which led her to the sport of ice hockey. 

"Once a year I would go to a hockey camp in the southeast part of Argentina, in Ushuaia, where we have our only big size ice rink in the country, and it's outdoors. I loved those two weeks of training on the ice." 

Eventually she was called up to play for her national U16 team where they traveled to play in the Amerigol Latam Cup in Florida. The team would need to quickly adjust from inline to the ice. 

"We would practice on roller blades and get to the tournament four days before to get used to the ice and then come back to Argentina and keep practicing inline," Ameigeiras said. 

Through her experiences with her national team her love for the sport of ice hockey continued to grow. 

"I started to get more passionate about hockey and wanted to see how far I could go if I always practiced on ice as much as I did inline hockey," she said. "I looked up opportunities and decided to go by myself to a college hockey showcase camp in Fort Myers, Florida in 2024." 

In Fort Myers Ameigeiras met Harry Rosenholtz, the camp organizer, and he mentioned a new hockey academy he was building in British Columbia, Canada called Purcell Hockey Academy.