U.S. National Sled Team Defeats China 6-3 in Preliminary Round of Para Hockey Cup

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. – Declan Farmer (Tampa, Fla.) scored twice and notched three assists to help lead the U.S. National Sled Team to a 6-3 victory over China here today (Dec. 2) in the Ovintiv Events Centre in the preliminary round of the 2025 Para Hockey Cup.

“Not the game we wanted to play, but we hung in there and found a way to win,” said David Hoff (Bottineau, N.D.), head coach of the U.S. National Sled Team. “Hopefully we can regroup, and we’ll have a better effort tomorrow night against Canada.”

At the 1:10 mark of the first period, Evan Nichols (Haymarket, Va.) slid the puck across the slot to Kayden Beasley (Coats, N.C.) on a two-on-one chance, and Beasley beat China netminder Wei Wang with a deke to open the scoring.

China’s Jintao Tian leveled the score early in the second period, but Team USA quickly regained the lead after Farmer collected a loose puck at the point and rifled a shot into the bottom right corner to make it a 2-1 game 3:41 into the second.

Just 20 seconds later, Farmer tallied his second goal of the contest, tucking the puck past Wang with his left off a feed from Josh Misiewicz (La Grange, Ill.).

At the 2:24 mark of the final stanza, Farmer found Misiewicz in the slot, who slid the puck past Wang to add to the U.S. lead.

Jack Wallace (Franklin Lakes, N.J.) capitalized on a wrist shot from the left circle, 5:40 into the third to put Team USA up 5-1.

Less than a minute later, China’s Yifeng Shen buried a breakaway chance to make it a 5-2 game, and then Dianpeng Qiu scored with just over seven minutes remaining in the contest to bring China within two goals.

Beasley notched his second tally of the game with 3:42 to play, finishing off a breakaway opportunity with a shot past Wang into the top-right corner for what proved to be the final goal of the contest.

Griffin LaMarre (Haverhill, Mass.) stopped 12 shots to earn the win in goal for Team USA.

Team USA will take on Canada in its third and final preliminary-round contest tomorrow (Dec. 3) at 7 p.m. local time/9 p.m. ET. For more information, including a full U.S. schedule and streaming details, click here.

NOTES: Kayden Beasley was named U.S. Player of the Game … Team USA outshot China 20-15 … The U.S. was 0-5 on the power play, while China was 0-2.

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