As opening acts go, it would be hard to beat the performance by the U.S. National Sled Team at the 2025 International Para Hockey Cup.

The Americans started their 2025-26 season by claiming their fourth straight IPH Cup on Sunday with a convincing 3-0 win over rival Canada in the championship game. The U.S. went 4-1-0-0 (W-OTW-OTL-L) in Ostrava, Czechia, from Oct. 20-26 to remain undefeated in the competition, which debuted in 2022.

“It was a solid effort and kind of where we wanted to finish today,” said David Hoff, head coach of the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team. “We talked about that. We really wanted to be good right from the back end. And I thought we really were, so a nice way to finish.”

The U.S. had opened the Cup with a 2-1 overtime win over the Canadians in the preliminary round. The Americans only improved from there and posted victories against Italy, Czechia and China before meeting Canada again on Sunday.

“You’re just trying to get adjusted,” Hoff said. “We’re trying to find a consistent lineup. We had a little bit of trouble with some injuries that held us down a little bit early on. It was just trying to get settled in.”

Hoff pointed out that the U.S. had issues with puck management in the tournament’s early stages, leading to eight conceded goals in three preliminary-round games. 

“We thought we made it too easy for teams to get scoring chances,” Hoff said. “We’re going to play a little bit of an open style where that’s going to happen, but we certainly want to be a little bit more careful with the puck. So, that was a big theme going into [the championship game] was trying to be a little bit more careful with any giveaways.”

The Americans succeeded and got a big boost from Declan Farmer, who scored a pair of goals and added an assist in the championship game. Farmer became the first U.S. player to reach 400 career points when he recorded four goals and three assists in an 8-2 win over China on Saturday.

“You don’t get that without having good teammates to pass you the puck and score goals themselves,” Farmer said of the milestone. “It’s definitely a team stat and team achievement over the course of my career in the program we’ve built, including all the guys before us, as well.”

Farmer has been scoring goals with ease for more than a decade now, but Hoff praised Farmer for everything he does besides putting the puck in the back of the net. 

“Obviously, there’s the scoring,” Hoff said. “He takes such pride in also not giving something up. He’s a 200-foot player. He just plays the game the right way on both ends of the ice.”

In the championship game, Canada goaltender Corbin Watson made life difficult early for the Americans with several acrobatic saves in the first period. 

“He had some good stops. He had a good game, for sure,” Farmer said. “I honestly think he was better than his game earlier in the tournament. Definitely made some more difficult saves. 

“It’s tough because you never know if you’re going to get more chances if you blow them early on, but … the only way to take that on is just to keep your head down and keep pushing. We did a good job with that.” 

Hoff noted that the presence of numerous sleds when operating in the offensive zone made it difficult to score at first.

“Once we got things spread out a little bit, we cashed in on some quality opportunities,” said Hoff, “and we played a really solid defensive game today.”

The Americans broke through with a shorthanded goal by Malik Jones in the first period, which was set up by Farmer. Hoff was pleased to see Jones score.

“As a staff, we were talking about if we could just get him going this year right from the start,” Hoff said. “We talked to him about not just possessing the puck on the edge of the rink but possessing it in the middle of the rink. 

“He had a lot of that good quality puck possession time in the middle of the rink. To see him get rewarded with a shorthanded goal there was really good.”

Farmer added a power-play goal in the second period and an empty-netter in the last minute of play to secure another Cup title.

At the other end of the ice, captain and veteran defenseman Josh Pauls was named U.S. Player of the Game for anchoring the Americans to a shutout against their biggest rival.

“I thought Josh Pauls was just outstanding in this tournament,” Hoff said. “He logged a lot of minutes. We had some issues with defensemen struggling with some injuries throughout the week, and he just was steady throughout. He was physical, ate up a lot of minutes that we needed.”

The Cup win puts the Americans on a path toward their goal of a gold medal in the 2026 Milano Cortina Paralympics, which would be their fifth straight.

“This is the start to what we want to be a really special season,” Hoff said. “We got a lot of young guys some quality minutes. It’s just a great start here, and we just want to get better.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.