Melfort Mustangs' head coach Trevor Blevins (right) will make his international coaching debut later this year when he steps behind the bench as the leader for Team Canada West at the 2025 Junior A World Challenge. (graphic courtesy/Hockey Canada)

By Ben Tompkins

International Debut

“It’ll be a special experience”: Mustangs’ Blevins excited to coach Canadian team

Oct 24, 2025 | 9:09 AM

For the first time in his illustrious coaching career, Melfort Mustangs’ bench boss, Trevor Blevins, will take the reins of Team Canada, making his international coaching debut.

Blevins was named the head coach for Canada West at the upcoming Junior A World Challenge earlier this week.

The Melfort native described his reaction to the news as excitement and honour, knowing the true gravity of the opportunity.

“It’ll be a special experience… it’s an honour, really, to get the chance to wear the Team Canada crest and represent our half of the country, so I’m excited and couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity. Where the games are really gonna get interesting is against the international teams,” he told northeastNOW.

“I can’t thank everyone enough who supported me all the way through; it’s just a matter of the organization giving me the green light, and my family as well has been huge for me. Everyone in this circle here has encouraged, promoted, and supported me, so I can’t thank them enough.”

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Blevins will travel out east to Trois-Rivières, Quebec, where the tournament will be held from Dec. 7-13.

Between Dec. 5 and 13, the Mustangs have five games of their own, so the bench boss duties in Melfort will fall to assistant coach Clarke Huxley.

With Huxley’s performance on and off the ice so far, and Blevins’ wife pushing him towards a new challenge, the decision to take the Team Canada role was easy.

“[Huxley] has just hit the ground running here; he’s done a fantastic job, and he puts the work in. He’s definitely developing relationships with the players at a very expedited pace, and he’s more than ready to step up. We’ll have some support for him too, but I’m really looking forward and excited for him to take the reins for five games… all the players will play hard for him, for sure,” concluded Blevins.

“Lydia (my wife) has been in my corner since day one, and she’s always promoted me to push myself and get out of my comfort zone. I think a person performs well when they’re uncomfortable, so I can’t thank her enough for pushing me to get this done and go through the process… every experience you take, you learn from it, so I’m going in with a mentality that I want to learn as much from others as, hopefully, I can provide for them, so I think we’re going to gel and have a great tournament.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

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