U.S. National Sled Team Tops Czechia 6-4 at 2025 IPH Cup

OSTRAVA, Czechia – Declan Farmer (Tampa, Fla.) tallied a hat trick and one assist, while Evan Nichols(Haymarket, Va.) scored once and added two helpers to lead the U.S. National Sled Team to a 6-4 victory over Czechia here today in the preliminary round of the 2025 IPH Cup at Ostravar Arena.

With the victory, Team USA holds a 2-1-0-0 (W-OTW-OTL-L) record through three games and will play China, Saturday at 6 p.m. local/12 p.m. ET, in its final preliminary-round contest. The game will stream live here.

“We had a really good start tonight, I thought offensively we were playing really fast,” said David Hoff(Bottineau, N.D.), head coach of the U.S. National Sled Team. “We had a bit of a letdown in the third and it made the game closer than it needed to be, but I liked that we found a way to do the right things and pull out a win in the end.”

Kayden Beasley (Coats, N.C.) opened the scoring for the U.S. 1:34 into the contest, batting home a cross-crease feed from Farmer on an odd-man rush.

GAME PHOTOS

Farmer buried a breakaway opportunity to make it a 2-0 game at the 6:24 mark, receiving a feed from Nichols at the top of the circles, and beating Czech netminder Martin Kudela with a deke.

At 7:25, Malik Jones (Aurora, Colo.) capitalized with a snipe from the left circle off a pass from Josh Misiewicz (La Grange, Ill.) to make it a 3-0 game.

Just 40 seconds later, Nichols collected a feed from Liam Cunnigham (River Falls, Wis.) and cut across the top of the crease before lifting the puck over the outstretched arm of Kudela to add to the U.S. advantage.

Team USA took a 5-0 lead 35 seconds into the middle stanza when Nichols sled the puck to Farmer off an offensive-zone faceoff, and Farmer rifled a shot it home from the slot.

Czechia’s Pavel Kubes made it a 5-1 game at the 7:28 mark of the second, scoring a power-play goal on a shot from the point that deflected off of Jones.

Less than a minute later, an acrobatic diving save from Griffin LaMarre (Haverhill, Mass.) maintained the four-goal lead for the U.S. LaMarre finished the game with eight shots to earn the win in goal.

At the 3:49 mark of the third, Czechia’s Zdenek Habl capitalized on a two-on-one opportunity to make it a 5-2 game.

Just 12 seconds later, Farmer intercepted a pass in the neutral zone and burst into the offensive zone with a breakaway chance, deking to beat Kudela for his third goal of the contest.

Czechia added a pair of goals in the latter half of the third period. Filip Vesely scored on a wrister from the slot with 6:16 remaining in the contest, and 30 seconds later, Alex Ohar capitalized on a breakaway chance to account for the 6-4 final.

NOTES: The U.S. outshot Czechia 22-12… Team USA was 0-3 on the power play, while Czechia was 1-1… Declan Farmer was named U.S. Player of the Game.