At an ice rink in Rochester, New Hampshire, skaters crash into each other as they fight over a puck. It’s just a practice, but the competition is fast-paced and aggressive. And, there’s one key difference that sets this apart from the hockey played at the Olympics.
“Sled hockey is ice hockey sitting down,” said Danny Santos, who’s competed in sled hockey for over 25 years. “It is the same sport, it’s full contact. You just use your arms to skate and you sit in a custom sled with two blades underneath you.”
The players hold a hockey stick in each hand, using one end to control the puck and digging the back ends into the ice to propel themselves forward.
“Full contact, full checking, penalties, same puck, same net, same rules,” Santos said. “Again, it’s just hockey, sitting down. So it gives people a chance to play hockey who might not play otherwise on their legs.”
This team is from a New Hampshire adaptive sports program called Northeast Passage, or NEP, and four of its players are representing the U.S. this week at the Paralympic Games in Italy.
Northeast Passage’s winning relationship with the Paralympics is nothing new.
“Team USA has won gold in 2002, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022,” Santos said. “NEP has had athletes on all of those teams.”
This year’s team includes David Eustace of Stoneham, Mass., who lost a leg as a child when he was hit by a car, and walks with a prosthetic. He started sled hockey when he was seven or eight years old.
“At first, I wasn’t the biggest fan of it, to be honest,” Eustace said. “I kind of just wanted to stand-up skate like anybody else. But the second or third time trying it, I really fell in love with it — fell in love with the speed of it and physicality. That’s a fun part too.”
Eustace was on the team that won gold at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing. Those games were during the pandemic, so there weren’t any fans allowed in the stands.
“It didn’t really feel like we were playing in front of anybody, because we really weren’t,” he said. “But this time I’m excited for a packed stadium and being able to enjoy my time and not worry about getting sick the whole time.”
Eustace has been playing on the Northeast Passage team for about 15 years with goalie Griffin Lamarre, his Paralympic teammate. Lamarre is also aiming to get his second gold medal. The team’s camaraderie keeps him going, he said.
“I think number one motivator is, I don’t want to miss out on these memories, you know, with guys that I consider my brothers,” Lamarre said.
Northeast Passage athletes Noah Grove and Evan Nichols are also on Team USA.
Among the skaters duking it out on the New Hampshire ice was 22-year old Ailin Zheng, who’s been playing sled hockey since she was 10.
“Everyone’s going pretty fast. I got hit a few times,” she said with a laugh as she took a brief break. “You’ve got to really keep your head up.”
Zheng is one of several women competing for Northeast Passage. And while the U.S. women’s hockey team won gold at this year’s Olympics, there’s no women’s category for sled hockey at the Paralympics — yet.
“We’re working towards that,” Zheng said. “So we need eight different teams, basically countries, to be able to have that division in the Paralympics, hopefully by 2030 is what we’re hoping for.”
If and when that happens, she said she hopes to join her other fellow club members on Team USA.
