Team USA rides passionate crowd support to gold medal win in Buffalo

Team USA took the World Para Ice Hockey Championships crown back after a commanding 6-1 victory over Canada in front of the home crowd in the gold medal game on Saturday at LECOM Harborcenter in Buffalo. Jack Wallace scored a hat-trick to help the United States take their seventh world title – marking the second championships win in Buffalo, the first being 2015 also against Canada. 

“Anytime you play in a para hockey game, you want to get the win.” 

Those were the words of Declan Farmer, assistant captain of the United States. And if leadership is best exercised when preaching by example, Farmer proved he had all the makings of a champion as he opened the scoring of the gold medal game less than three minutes into the opening frame, giving the red, white and blue a lead they would never relinquish.

Farmer's absolute BEAUTY of a first goal 🥵 #SledWorlds pic.twitter.com/ZmfXRSCKx6

— USA Hockey (@usahockey) May 31, 2025

“That’s the best game I’ve seen the United States play in a long time, and it’s just unfortunate that it came today against us,” said Team Canada head coach Russ Herrington after the game. “They didn’t give us any space to breathe, get our game going or impose our will at all. That’s a team that’s been sitting on a sour feeling for a year and two weeks and waiting for their chance to get us back, and that’s as determined and relentless as I’ve seen them play.”

His counterpart’s post-game smile gave away his likeminded game evaluation. 

“We knew where we wanted to be. We all wanted to be in this game, we weren’t quite as sharp at some points along the way, but I thought today, we were awfully dominating,” David Hoff said. “As a coach, you worry about taking your foot off the pedal a little, but this group just didn’t. (…) Guys just kept playing hard and just playing the right way. We’re awfully hard to play against when we play that way.”

Indeed, the red, white and blue picked an excellent day for such a stellar performance, igniting the flame in an already passionate hometown crowd: “It definitely hypes us up,” said the tournament’s Most Valuable Player Declan Farmer. “Hearing them cheering, going into the tunnel between periods, it just gets you motivated.”

His coach also echoed the sentiment, even more so in a victorious effort: “That’s awfully fun. We’ve been fortunate to win the World Championships since I’ve been here on three other occasions, but always on foreign soil, and, not that we didn’t have good supporters there, we just didn’t have it as loud as this one. It was fun to be in front of a ‘USA! USA!’ crowd.”

Hence, momentum was built off that home crowd support, but another energy swing came in the form of the United States shorthanded unit. Indeed, in the first 30 minutes of action, the Canadian power play had moments when it started to give the red and white some momentum of their own, but the host team always seemed to get ahead of it before the pendulum could properly swing the other way. 

🏆 World Champions🥇#ParaIceHockey #Buffalo2025 @Paralympics

📸: Micheline Veluvolu / USA Hockey pic.twitter.com/lMFClTH8pC

— Para Ice Hockey (@paraicehockey) May 31, 2025

Just 1:07 after Farmer opened the scoring, Wallace doubled Team USA’s lead. Liam Hickey responded by cutting the host’s advantage to one, but Josh Pauls restored the two-goal cushion, making it 3-1 with 4:06 left in the first period.

Wallace struck again in the second period and completed his hat trick 6:46 into the third. Josh Misiewicz sealed the scoring with a power-play goal. Griffin Lamarre finished with 10 saves, while Canadian goaltender Adam Kingsmill made 18 stops in the defeat.

With that, the Buffalo 2025 World Para Ice Hockey Championships drew to a close. Canadian Tyler McGregor was named top forward, while USA’s Jack Wallace received top defenseman award and Czech goaltender Patrik Sedlacek was rewarded with the likewise honour for his position. 

Buffalo 2025 Final Standings

1. USA
2. Canada
3. Czechia
4. China
5. Germany
6. Slovakia
7. Korea
8. Norway

Complete team stats and all results from Buffalo 2025 can be found here.