"Playing in the gold-medal game was something I never thought would happen that early on [in my career]," Garcia said. "That was probably the best game of my life and winning was super special.
"I remember the locker room after … that whole game was great. We played probably our best game of the tournament in the gold-medal game."
AJ's mother, Lisa, was there to watch. A radiology manager in the Chicago area, she witnessed the on-ice celebration and thought back to all the hours she and her husband, Aurelio, spent driving so AJ could play for coach Sean Berens at Team Illinois and Gino Cavallini at Chicago Mission.
"They could not get the smiles off their faces," Lisa said of AJ and Team USA. "It was the best moment of his life -- of my life, so far -- to see that happen.
"That was the most exciting thing, to see how happy they were, and to see them so happy for each other. Hugging each other, taking pictures, doing the song they sing in the locker room. I think I watched that video over and over, just because they were so happy."
Garcia's performance at the Youth Olympics helped his candidacy for the NTDP evaluation camp, held in March at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan. The tryout was stressful, but he made the roster, following the path of recent Chicago Mission alums Gabe Perreault (New York Rangers) and Cole McKinney (2025 NHL Draft eligible).
Both of AJ's parents grew up in the Chicago area at a time when it was common for baseball fields in city parks to become hockey rinks during the winter. Aurelio saw fellow neighborhood kids enjoying the ice and wanted to join them. He asked his mother for a pair of skates. Money was tight and she went to the secondhand store.
"She got me a pair of figure skates," Aurelio recalled. "I learned to play on a pair of figure skates. When I looked at the other guys, I went back to my mom and said, 'These aren't the right skates.' She's like, 'Well, if you want to play, you're going to learn on those and we'll go from there.' At the time, that's the best we could do. So I learned."