Guerin product of grandfather's progressive beliefs in Nicaragua

Victor Delgadillo lived in Nicaragua his entire life. His family believes he never saw a frozen pond or sheet of ice. He certainly never attended a hockey game.

But Delgadillo's name belongs in the sport's annals, because he's responsible for one of the most significant careers in American hockey history. You see, Victor Delgadillo is the late grandfather of Bill Guerin.

Guerin won the Stanley Cup twice as a player (New Jersey Devils, 1995; Pittsburgh Penguins, 2009) and twice more as an executive (Penguins, 2016, 2017). He helped the United States win the gold medal at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and the silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. He had 856 points (429 goals, 427 assists) in 1,263 regular-season NHL games with the Devils, Edmonton Oilers, Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, San Jose Sharks, New York Islanders and Penguins, and was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2014. After spending eight seasons in the Penguins front office, he's now in in his sixth season as general manager of the Minnesota Wild, and also will be the GM for the U.S. for the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.

Guerin became the first Hispanic player in NHL history when he debuted with the Devils in 1992. Delgadillo made that possible because of a decision in the 1950s that many at the time viewed as radical.

Delgadillo grew up in Bluefields, on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Because of its importance as a port city, Bluefields had a heavy U.S. presence during and after the formal American occupation of the country in the early 20th century. By meeting Americans, Delgadillo became fascinated with the U.S. and the English language.

Victor and his wife, Marina, ultimately settled in the capital city of Managua. They raised six children, including five daughters, during the period when the Somoza dictatorship ruled the country. Victor dreamed of his children being educated in the U.S., and he dedicated himself to making that a reality.

Ligia, fourth in the Delgadillo birth order, is Bill Guerin's mother.

"He adored anything U.S.," Ligia (pronounced Lee-HEE-ah) recalled in a recent interview. "We were lucky that way, that he said, 'This is where you're going.'"

But where in the United States?

Fortunately, some of Victor's relatives immigrated to the U.S. around that time. His cousin had a farm in Tupelo, Mississippi, about 55 miles away from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

And so Ole Miss is where his children would go.

"We all went there, all six of us," Ligia said.

At this point in the Delgadillo/Guerin story, some historical context is needed: Ligia enrolled at Ole Miss in 1961, one year before James Meredith became the first African-American student admitted to the university and three years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In that sense, Ligia and her siblings went against the prevailing cultures in two places: In the Nicaraguan city they left, it was uncommon for women to pursue higher education. In the American state where they arrived, laws had codified racial discrimination.

"I only questioned my father once: How come you are so insistent that we go to college and learn [a profession]?" Ligia said. "He said, 'I know you're going tell me that you're going to get married and have children. How about if something happens to your husband? He has a car accident and can't work. He dies. You have kids. How are you going to support them?'

"I said, 'Well, I guess I have to go and work myself.' He said, 'Yes, that's why I want you to learn.'"

Melissa Escajadillo, Bill Guerin's sister, believes her grandparents were motivated by their family's experience in Nicaragua. Marina had sisters who were in abusive relationships, with no economic means or professional training to support themselves if they left.

"My grandfather was really adamant about his daughters being educated," Melissa said. "People used to say it was a waste of time and money. 'Why was he sending his girls to college?' He got a lot of backlash for that in Managua. … He was a forward-thinker back in the '40s and '50s."

Not only were Ligia and her siblings attending an American university, they were at the epicenter of the civil rights movement.

"When [Meredith] came in, all classes were cancelled," Ligia said. "It was maybe two days of waiting until everything settled down. I had no problem with it. One woman said to me, 'Oh, we apologize. You came here to get an education and look at all that's going on. This is awful.'

"I said, 'No, that's OK. Don't worry about it. We had students in Nicaragua always on strike against Somoza.' I was used to it."

Ligia's academic transition was challenging, simply because she had little exposure to the language in which her courses were taught. She had attended a French-language school in Managua and spoke minimal English. For her first two years, she had to take a limited course load, along with additional summer classes, while her English skills improved.

During her third year she met a recent graduate of Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire who had traveled to Oxford to volunteer for the Catholic Church's campus ministry.

His name was Bill Guerin Sr.

They dated long-distance once Bill returned to his native Massachusetts. Bill encouraged Ligia to visit. She did, traveling on a Trailways bus from Oxford to Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ligia laughs today about the difficulty of communicating with store clerks on her first trip there, with her accent (equal parts Mississippi and Managua) colliding with the unique vernacular of New England. In time, however, Massachusetts became her home. Ligia and Bill Sr. raised their three children there: Melissa, Billy (as he's known to family), and John.

"I married a wonderful fellow with a wonderful family, and now I have great kids," Ligia said proudly.

Ligia became a teacher after earning her degree at Ole Miss. Bill Sr., who died in 2007, spent more than 30 years working in the financial industry at Kidder Peabody and UBS.

"Growing up, my mom was always involved in school things: president of the PTA at one point, helped with special causes, always involved in the church," Melissa said. "My dad thrived on community service. When I think of that phrase, 'Think globally, act locally,' that's how my father was. He did have a very expansive mind and interests, but he spent a lot of energy locally.

"He was very involved with the Boys Club in Springfield, always involved at the church. He became chairman of the board of his college, Saint Anselm. He was a Knight of Malta. He was chairman of the board and board member at the local high school where Billy and John went, called Wilbraham & Monson Academy. He was always involved in community service, his whole entire life."

Given his family's orientation toward serving causes of vast scope and importance, Bill Guerin Jr. is a natural choice to lead USA Hockey's upcoming efforts to win on the international stage.

Guerin is intimately familiar with the difficult roster decisions that await. He nearly made the U.S. team for the 1992 Albertville Olympics before being one of the final cuts. Ironically, Bill received the news after Melissa had watched him play in one of the United States' final exhibition games.

"They had happened to be playing in Baltimore, and I was living in D.C., so I had gone to the game," Melissa said. "I still get choked up when I talk about it. He called me that day or the next day and he’s like, 'I got cut.'

"We were both crying on the phone. It was such a hard moment. Then he went immediately to play professionally with Herb Brooks, who had a similar story. He was the last one cut from an Olympic team [in 1960]. I remember when he was signing with the Devils, and it was Herb Brooks, I remember feeling so relieved, that everything was going to be OK.

"When he was on the Olympic team [in 1998], for me, that was awesome, because his dream is still coming true."

Decades later, Bill Guerin still has that dream of winning an Olympic gold medal. If that happens in 2026, he'll have many people to thank, including the grandfather whose belief in pursuing education made all of this possible.