A silver medal in the 2024 World Para Ice Hockey Championship was a step back to reality, according to Dan Brennan, the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team general manager.
“You don’t want to lose in the gold-medal game after going undefeated for three years,” Brennan said.
David Hoff, the United States head coach, added that you can’t dwell on the past.
“We talked about it,” Hoff said of the 2-1 loss to Canada in last year’s gold-medal game. “Using it as motivation going forward when we haven’t been as focused as we should be.
“If we can be as good as we can, we’ll have a chance to win.”
The 2025 edition of the tournament will run May 24-31 at the LECOM Harborcenter in Buffalo, New York, with the U.S. set to play in Group B along with Czechia, Slovakia and Norway.
Hoff and his crew will kick off the tournament at 1:30 p.m. ET on Saturday against Norway, with games to follow Sunday against Slovakia and Tuesday against Czechia. Fans can stream every U.S. game on USAHockeyTV.com.
Hoff is in his seventh season with the team, and he said the reason the U.S. is so tough year in and year out — and this year in particular — is because the depth of talent continues to grow.
“We’ve had some conversations here as a staff, we have 17 players here and we can only dress 15, and it gets harder and harder [to determine] who those guys are,” he said.
Team USA will be chasing its seventh gold medal with goaltenders Jen Lee and Griffin LaMarre.
“Jen and Griffin have improved immensely,” Brennan said. “They are high-character guys who are popular in the locker room. They take the position very seriously but know how to have fun with each other. We wouldn’t be where we are without them.”
Lee said former longtime goalie Steve Cash, who was recently voted into the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Hall of Fame, has been a big influence on his game, and his life.
“Brothers for life type of deal,” Lee said. “Watching him, how he performed and prepared for a game and the thought process, how he mentored me. [It was] just the way he played as aggressive as a small goaltender.”
Offensively, the show starts with star forward Declan Farmer. Brennan said Farmer does so many things well and is never satisfied with his own efforts.
“Declan sits in the locker room after getting two goals and he thinks about what he missed,” Brennan said, adding fellow forwards Kevin McKee, David Eustace and Travis Dodson make life unbearable for opponents game in, game out.
The U.S. defense is headed up by team captain Josh Pauls, who is in his 16th season and has quite literally seen it all in his tenure.
“When Josh was 15, he was cut twice and brought back twice, which we look back and laugh about,” Brennan said. “He still maintains his speed in the defensive zone. He’s been wonderful.”
The veterans as well-established, but who could step in the limelight and make a name for himself in the coming week?
Brennan and Hoff differ here.
Hoff thinks it’s defenseman Noah Grove, whose offensive game is growing, he said. In fact, at the end of the first two team practices in Buffalo, Hoff runs a drill called the OT Winner and Grove “cashed in both times. It’s one thing to do it one day, but to do it in two practices here?”
Brennan opts for 17-year-old defenseman Liam Cunningham, who played so well last season that he and Hoff had to keep him on the squad.
“It was a brilliant mistake on our behalf,” he said. “He’s a tough player for a 17-year-old and makes good decisions. He’s not going to score a ton of goals, but he’s going to make the opponents’ lives miserable.”
As far as the schedule itself goes, the preliminary round matchup against once-powerful Norway should be a good litmus test, Brennan added, but so should the game against Czechia, because “we know each other really well, and we look at the sport in a similar way.”
Lee said that he’s looking forward to the week in Buffalo with good hockey.
“Our bracket, we’ve got pretty good countries ahead of us,” he said. “We’ve played them before in different tournaments and world championships.
“It should be a competitive one, but at the same time we have to do our job and execute.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Source: usahockey.com