During his third year of major junior, Hickey was chosen to represent Canada for the 2008 World Junior Championships in the Czech Republic, where he helped Canada to a fourth consecutive gold medal. He was selected the next year for the 2009 World Junior Championships in Ottawa as the team captain, returning with John Tavares, P. K. Subban and Zach Boychuk from the previous year's team. In the third game of preliminaries, he was chosen as Canada's player of the game in a 5–1 win against Germany. Canada went on to beat Sweden in the finals for the third straight year to capture its fifth consecutive WJHC gold medal.