Meet the Colorado athletes leading Team USA sled hockey in chase for 5th straight Paralympic gold

Before the Florida sun rose, Brett Bolton was dripping sweat, determined to reclaim his sled hockey dream.

The University of Colorado sophomore was cut from the Team USA sled hockey roster ahead of the 2025 world championships, so last summer, Bolton returned to his home state with a singular focus: make the 2026 Winter Paralympic team.

He woke up every day at 4:30 a.m. and was on the ice by 6 a.m., just him and a bag of pucks. Then swam for over an hour and finished in the gym, where he lifted and did the stair-climbing machine for another hour.

From that grind, Bolton dropped 30 pounds, dialed in his shot and reset his mind. The result was a completely different player, and one who will be central to Team USA securing a fifth straight gold medal at the Milan Cortina Paralympic Games that begin this week.

“He’s completely broken out,” Team USA star forward Declan Farmer said. “Some players just figure out a way to do the right things to score goals, and he’s one of them. He’s figuring it out at the perfect time, too, because we’re going to need him to score in Milan.”

Sled hockey, also known as para ice hockey or sledge hockey, is an adaptation of normal hockey for disabled athletes, who skate around on sleds and use a pair of sticks with metal picks on the handle ends to propel themselves around the ice. It was invented in the 1960s at a rehabilitation center in Sweden, and has been a Paralympic sport since 1994.

The Centennial State has become the sport’s American epicenter, with Bolton and Farmer representing two of eight Colorado residents who make up almost half of Team USA’s 17-man roster. Bolton, 19, who chose to attend CU because he wanted to be in Colorado to train, wasn’t about to let his hockey-motivated move go to waste.

“Getting cut was a reality check and a wake-up call,” he said. “It was a probably one of the lowest moments of my life. I had been on the national team (since age 16), and I was getting complacent. I was in that mindset that I can just glide through.

“Honestly, that was honestly probably the right moment for me to get cut. Looking back now, I see the red flags (the coaches saw). But I was determined to make it back — I came to Colorado for this sport, and I was so close to my (Paralympic) goal. I knew I could not give up now, no matter what the cost.”

Gold quest rooted in Colorado

While Bolton will be making his Paralympic debut, Farmer is by far the most accomplished American player in the history of the sport. The Tampa, Florida, native is Team USA’s all-time leader in career goals, assists and points, and already has three gold medals in the Paralympics plus eight more medals (five gold, three silver) from the world championships.

In addition to those two, four other Team USA forwards also call Colorado home: Malik Jones, Evan Nichols, David Eustace and Travis Dodson. Plus, defender Noah Grove and goalie Jen Lee also live here.

Only Jones, an Aurora native, is actually from Colorado. Jerry DeVaul, a longtime pillar for Colorado Sled Hockey, explains that the combination of training at elevation, ample ice time and the influence of a pair of former Team USA stars in Nikko Landeros and Tyler Carron created the pipeline for the state to become the training ground for the sport’s American dominance.

Landeros and Carron were juniors at Berthoud High School when they were injured on the way home from a dance. After they were struck by a vehicle while changing a tire and became pinned between two SUVs, both athletes became bilateral amputees. Landeros went on to win three gold Paralympic medals in sled hockey, and Carron won two.

“Nico and Tyler were the original guys that started bringing everyone to Colorado because everyone wanted to play with them,” DeVaul explained. “Those two were like the original bash brothers of sled hockey. Then Rico Roman, a three-time Paralympic gold medalist, moved out here and (two-time gold medalist) Ralph DeQuebec moved out here, too.

“Then everyone else started following. It was like the dominoes started falling into place. Top players across the nation, they wanted to be a part of the training that was happening in Colorado. And once the G.O.A.T. moved out here (Farmer), that brought more guys who are on the current team.”

The national team players who call Colorado home practice together year-round.

Recently, it’s been at the CU ice rink, where Bolton is able to get the players in because of his status as a CU student. The Colorado contingent also trains at Blue Sport Stable in Superior, where the Paralympic team’s training camp was held, and in the past has also practiced at the Apex Center Ice Arena in Arvada and Big Bear Ice Arena in Lowry.

Farmer plans out the drills for those practices, which are usually four days a week and consist of anywhere from six to 10 players. That tally includes Team USA players, as well as Colorado Sled Hockey players like DeVaul and even national team players from other countries like Landeros (who is playing for Italy in the upcoming Games), Japanese stars and Korean up-and-comers.

“They can get feisty sometimes just because we’re all competitors, and we all know with such small numbers on the ice, the practices have to be intense and at the highest level for us to get better,” Farmer said. “They are emotional in some ways because without (a consistent league) to play in, it’s important that everyone actually cares about winning the scrimmages.”

Outside of practice, the local Team USA members bond off the ice, including numerous camping trips each summer. The relationships developed in Colorado, Farmer said, have been imperative in forming the Americans’ stranglehold on the game on the international stage.

“Becoming good friends is a critical part of our team, and it helps that so many of us live here and see each other throughout the year,” Farmer said. “That’s developed into a key advantage for us.”

From a Chinese orphanage to Milan

While the cause of each Team USA sled hockey player’s disability varies, the common thread between them is that they refused to let their physical limitations off-ice define them in a fast-paced sport that requires significant upper-body strength, speed and a similar physicality to their stand-up counterparts.

Farmer was born a bilateral amputee. Jones was born with no tibias and only three fingers on each hand, and had both legs amputated at 10 months old. Eustace lost his left leg at 5 when he was leaving school one day and was hit by a car whose driver lost control because of a prosthetic leg getting stuck on the gas pedal. And Lee, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, had his left leg amputated above the knee as a result of a motorcycle accident.

For Bolton — the fourth-youngest player on the team — his path to the Paralympics began in a rural village in Henan, China. Born a congenital amputee who is missing his left leg, Bolton theorizes that his biological parents abandoned him because a child in that village would be expected to help on the family farm.

Bolton spent most of his infant years in a rundown orphanage in Beijing before being transferred to a better, American-run orphanage because of his condition. He was adopted by a Florida couple at age 3, and he said “they pushed me the same way they would push any other kid.”

“They didn’t give me any excuses of why I couldn’t participate,” Bolton said of his parents. “And they worked really hard to find something that worked for me in sports.”

He competed in soccer and gymnastics against his able-bodied peers in early childhood, and track (he was the Florida para-javelin state champion) and wrestling in high school. But his omen came a few years before high school, when the 12-year-old Bolton was invited to participate in the Team USA sled hockey Select Development Camp.

By 15, he was on the program’s Development Team, and he made his Team USA debut at the International Para Hockey Cup the next year.

“Making the team that young was a clear indicator that I probably had a pretty good future on this team,” Bolton said. “That’s really what cemented my dream to do something great in this sport.”

‘A ton of pressure’ to win again

While Bolton is focused on making an impact in his Paralympic debut, Farmer is intent on padding the American sled hockey dynasty and Jones, the homegrown superstar, is primed for his next chapter.

The 28-year-old Farmer, who scored two goals in the last Paralympic final in Beijing as Team USA thumped Canada 5-0, believes he has a lot left in the tank. The Boulder resident wants to keep playing for Team USA through the 2034 Winter Paralympic Games in Utah, while continuing to serve as the sport’s most recognizable ambassador.

“He’s already the Wayne Gretzky of sled hockey, but Declan’s also helping grow the sport,” David Eustace said. “His success and fame has definitely brought more people into the sport, and helped pushed it into the mainstream.

“Up until a few years ago, a lot of people didn’t really know what sled hockey was. But now, anybody who’s spent any time in or around a rink knows exactly what you’re talking about when you mention sled hockey, and Declan’s a big part of that.”

Meanwhile, Jones, who tallied five points in the Beijing Games, is poised to be Team USA’s complementary scoring punch alongside Farmer. The 23-year-old is one of the fastest sled skaters in the world, and matches that speed with thunderous checks and precision passing.

Jones said his progression from local phenom to Team USA centerpiece is a credit to Farmer’s tutelage over the past four years.

“It’s been wonderful learning from him by watching him operate on a day-to-day basis, and I’ve made it my mission to take in as much information from him that I can, and adapt it to how I operate,” Jones said. “He’s always teaching me, always making sure I’m doing things the right way, on and off the ice. That’s what you need if you want to get better — someone to hold you accountable when no one’s watching. He’s been that force for me.”

Bolton echoed a similar sentiment, calling Farmer his “professional chauffeur” because Farmer gives Bolton rides to practices when they aren’t held at CU.

Farmer hopes his support of both Jones and Bolton pays off for the Team USA offense in Italy, where the Americans will go for the hockey trifecta after the men’s and women’s stand-up teams both claimed gold in dramatic 2-1 overtime wins over rival Canada in their respective championships.

Team USA is a heavy favorite to win the sled hockey gold, but Canada — which upset the Americans in the title of the 2024 world championships, ending a two-plus-year win streak in the process — is capable of playing spoiler. China and the Czech Republic have also taken big strides since the last Paralympics as the rest of the world hustles to catch up to the North American superpowers.

Eustace acknowledged there is “a ton of pressure” to win another gold.

“We all want to continue the legacy that this team has built over the years, especially those of us who train together all year here in Colorado,” Eustace said. “The pressure weighs on us a bit, but we’ve got talented veterans, we’ve got young stars capable of making an impact. We know that we are the most capable team. Now, we just have to execute.”

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