Waihi Beach's Josh McGinty headed for the worlds roller champs

Josh McGinty will join the Kiwi inline hockey U16 team at the North American Roller Hockey Championship.

Waihi Beach's Josh McGinty is one of nine lucky inline hockey athletes who will represent New Zealand at the North American Roller Hockey Championship U16 event in Los Angeles early next year.

Josh is over the moon about being selected.

''When I heard I thought 'is this real?' I was super excited.''

Inline Hockey New Zealand hosted a trial in March to put a team together for the North American championships (known as NARCh) where selectors put about 30 hopefuls through drills and game situations.

Josh has been playing with the Waihi Miners Inline Hockey club after starting out on skates from age 8.

His cousin Johnny played with the club and Josh wanted to give it a go. There is just a handful of inline hockey clubs in the country and the miners club has members from all over.

Josh loves the fast paced nature of the sport.

When you get the puck you have split seconds to figure out what you're going to do with it.

''It's difficult in terms of being aware of so many things at the same time like balancing, pushing the puck around super-fast, you have to make sure you're not going to crash into anyone and you're also anticipating what others are doing.''

They substitute many times during play because the sport is so intense, mum Helen says, every few minutes.

Josh says the sport has no connection to field hockey and has more similarities to ice hockey.

''Most of the gear we use is the same but ice hockey is more of a physical sport whereas inline hockey is marketed as a non-contact sport.''

Helen says Josh's abilities have taken off in the last few seasons playing with the seniors.

Josh is also a rep player for the central region and has been shoulder-tapped to play in an Auckland club.

NARCh is the largest roller hockey tournament globally and its youth portion is believed to be the largest youth indoor sporting event in the world.

The championships are in January.