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32-year-old Claudia Tellez of the Mexico women’s national team has signed up for the CWHL’s 2016 Draft. A forward, Tellez has been a member of Team Mexico since its inception in 2012 and hoped to play in the 2018 Olympics.

“I want to get to the Olympic games,” Tellez said in a 2012 VICE Sports article. “That’s my dream. I’m not living in Mexico City for work. I’m here for hockey.”

Tellez will not see the Olympic ice in PyeongChang, South Korea with her MWNT teammates; only the top eight teams in the world are asked to compete in the Olympics.

Mexico’s women’s national team is ranked 35 in the world, and is only a little over four years old while the men’s national team is ranked 32 in the world and has been around for several decades. The women’s team played its first exhibition match on February 12, 2012 against Argentina. The team itself was formed from a number of inline skaters who decided to give ice hockey a try.

Mexico is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation, joining in 1985 for men’s competitions, as it did not form its women’s team until 2012. Among Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas, only Mexico, Argentina and Chile qualify for IIHF membership.

Currently Tellez has appeared in six international competitions for Mexico, two world championships, one qualifier and two pan-American competitions. She takes great pride in representing her country and Latin America as a whole; Mexico is the only Latin American country to participate in international ice hockey tournaments. Argentina and Chile are much more active in the inline hockey competitions, but do include ice and inline hockey in their national federations.

“More than anything, I’m proud to represent my country because ice hockey is barely growing in Latin America,” Tellez says in the interview linked below. “Mexico is the only country that represents Latinos.”

The CWHL Draft will take place August 21 in Toronto, Canada.

Mexico National Team Forward Claudia Tellez joins CWHL Draft