Buffalo 2025: Four teams book their tickets to the Winter Paralympics on day two

Day two of the Buffalo 2025 World Para Ice Championships proved to be a decisive one, with each team now understanding their direction for the remainder of their tournament – as well as precisely knowing what they have earned, and are yet to earn.

Sunday's action saw four nations – hosts USA, Canada, China and Czechia – secure their place in the semifinals and, with that, book a ticket to the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games next March. 

Czechia earns spot in the semifinals and beyond

In the day’s opening match-up, Team Czechia skated away with a 4-0 shutout victory over Team Norway, confirming the Czech’s presence in the tournament’s semifinals, as well as the 2026 Winter Paralympics. 

And while the score may suggest a lopsided game, Czech Head Coach Jakub Novotny offered a different analysis on the flow of the game: “We started very well, we had a good start to each period, but after a while, the Norwegians started to warm up and played very well at the end of the periods, so it was a good game from both teams.”

Michal Geier led the way for the victors with a two-goal effort, most notably finding the twine early in the first period and providing his team with what would be the ever so important insurance goal. After the final buzzer, the Czech player of the game was all smiles with his now upcoming competition in Italy at the front of his mind.

“For us, it was very important to start the tournament [with two wins]. We won yesterday and hoped for the same today. The most important thing is that we are qualified for the Paralympics,” Geier said. “Now we can concentrate on the rest of the tournament.”

Team USA continues to impress

In Group B’s second match-up of the day, the United States cruised to a 13-0 victory over Slovakia, cementing their spot in the semifinals – and to defend their gold medal at the next Winter Games.

Defenseman Jake Wallace (three goals and four assists) and forward Declan Farmer (four goals and two assists) formed a dynamic duo for the hosts – most notably on their team’s tenth goal as Farmer made a behind-the-back pass to Wallace across the crease, which the blueliner then fired to the back of the net to the cheers of the home crowd.

One-way traffic! 🚨

Another dominant win for @usahockey, this time over Slovakia with a 13-0 blowout.

Team USA and Czechia (both group B) are already guaranteed in the playoffs.

📊 https://t.co/rMK55CeYQX
📸: Micheline Veluvolu
#Buffalo2025#ParaIceHockey #Buffalo2025 pic.twitter.com/bzIewobCFa

— Para Ice Hockey (@paraicehockey) May 25, 2025

In the tradition of all good coaches never losing sight of the big picture, Team USA Head Coach David Hoff immediately spoke of the importance of seeing the offense spread out throughout his line-up: “I really liked our start. I thought the first seven and a half minutes we really got out to a good start. We spread the scoring out with our third line [scoring] three of the first five (…) which puts us in a pretty good spot.”

The main sentiment was echoed by Kevin McKee (two goals and one assist), as the USA forward spoke about the red, white and blue’s strong start: “We started off pretty hot in the beginning and then I thought we had a bit of a slow end of the first. Then we worked it out in the intermission and then kind of turned it back on and went back to some fundamental stuff in the second.”

When asked about having clinched a top two ranking in their group, number 88 proved cautious in not looking too far ahead: “Now we know we are in the semis. We don’t know the seeding yet but at least the first stop of our goal was just to get into the semis (…) and keep going from there.”

Canada will also be skating in Milano

With a decisive 12-0 win over Korea, the Canadian delegation also confirmed their spot both in the semifinals and at the Milano 2026 Winter Paralympics. The game saw Team Canada come out of the gate flying, finding the back of the net no less than five times within the game’s first five minutes. James Dunn and Dominic Cozzolino each recorded a hat trick, with the former being rewarded for his efforts with player of the game honours while the latter added three assists.

“I thought it was a great game by Canada, we played the way we wanted to play, and it showed,” said Dunn after the contest. “We want to get starts like that every game and I think we maybe want to do that moving forward as well.”

When asked if the clinch took pressure off his team, Canadian Head Coach Russ Herrington was content but also careful not to look too far ahead. 

“Certainly, we spent three years trying to clinch a spot in Milano Cortina and we did that with the win today, so that takes that off the front burner, we don’t need to worry about that. Now we can focus simply on showing up and being Team Canada on Tuesday morning against China,” Herrington said.

Scored a goal, set up three others. Your Player of the Game is Liam Hickey! 🇨🇦

Un but, trois mentions d’aide. Liam Hickey est votre Joueur du match! 🇨🇦#Buffalo2025 | #ParaIceHockey pic.twitter.com/UkLZw5Fwlg

— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) May 26, 2025

China completes the quartet

On the day’s final game, Team China triumphed over Team Germany by an 8-0 score. The Chinese penalty kill cemented itself as the tournament’s most dangerous offensively as it managed to find the back of the net yet again, coming after yesterday’s three shorthanded goal tour de force. 

Forward Jin Tao Tian was the author of said goal on Sunday, he who had duplicated the feat 24 hours earlier. Yifeng Shen scored and had two assists against Germany.

With the first four spots to Milan Cortina now having been confirmed, it would be easy to lose sight that a fifth and final spot is still up for grabs in Buffalo. Indeed, Korea, Germany, Norway and Slovakia will now focus their efforts on seeding and qualification games, the victor of the showdown guaranteeing their participation in the 2026 Paralympics.

Teams will get a rest day before taking to the ice again on Tuesday (27 May), with Canada and China starting the day, followed by a United States against Czechia game. Team Norway and Team Slovakia will then face-off, before the Germans and Koreans battle it out in the final preliminary game.

Complete scores, stats and schedule from the World Para Ice Hockey Championships can be found here.

USAHockeyTV is streaming all the Bufalo 2025 action live.