GOLD STANDARD: Princeton University alum Declan Farmer ’20, who has earned two gold medals at the Paralympics playing for the United States men’s sled hockey team, is honored with a poster on the wall at Hobey Baker Rink. Farmer is currently competing for the U.S. squad at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing as he goes after a third gold medal.

By Justin Feil

Declan Farmer returned to Princeton University a hero four years ago.

Then just a sophomore at the school, Farmer scored the game-tying goal with 38 seconds left in regulation and the game-winner 3:30 into overtime to help the United States men’s sled hockey team win defeat Canada 2-1 in the gold medal game at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

“It was really cool,” said Farmer, a 2020 Princeton grad. “All my friends knew what I was doing. Word kind of spread. I had just joined Cottage eating club. A lot of the men’s hockey team is in Cottage, and they had just won their conference championship. They honored both of us at the first Sunday Funday of the year. It was cool. They had me bring my gold medal out. It was nice. It meant a lot.”

Farmer spent his final two years at Princeton beginning to lay the foundation for a return to this year’s Paralympics in Beijing, where he is seeking to win his third career gold medal. Farmer first won gold at Sochi in 2014 as a 16-year-old. Now at 24 he’s part of a veteran group leading the U.S., which is favored to win what would be their fourth straight Paralympics title.

“It’s definitely a lot different,” said Farmer, a native of Tampa, Fla. “The team seems a lot more mature. Everyone is generally older. There’s a big group of us who are all between 23 and 25, which is kind of weird. That’s the age of the ‘old guys’ on the team back in my first years on the team, the Sochi days. Everyone has grown up together in a way.”

The U.S. played its toughest competition, Canada, in the Paralympics opener on March 5 and Farmer starred as the U.S. prevailed 5-0. The forward tallied a goal and four assists in the win. A day later, Farmer chipped in two goals and three assists as the U.S. defeated South Korea 9-1 to improve to 2-0 in Group A play.  The Americans won the 2021 World Championship to gain momentum and confidence coming into the Paralympics. Pool play is scheduled to end March 8 with the bracket quarterfinals slated for March 9. The semifinals are March 11 and the gold medal game is March 13.

“We’re looking pretty good,” said Farmer. “We had one of our best games as team in that ’21 championship game against Canada. We have a really good squad. There are tons of guys that have taken the next step and really developed into very good players so we’re super deep. We can run three lines, we can really stack up with two lines, which was kind of the strategy the coaching staff used in that 2021 gold medal game when we won Worlds this past summer.”

Farmer is serving as a captain for the team. He has an abundance of experience after being introduced to the game just over 15 years ago. He was born a bilateral amputee, and at age 9 tried sled hockey in which players sit on modified sleds with two skate blades below. Players each have two sticks, with one end sharp to propel themselves.

“Sled has grown,” said Farmer. “There are probably three or four times as many club teams in the country as when I first made the national team. It’s harder to make the national team each year, it’s harder to stay on the national team each year. That’s a tribute to how much USA Hockey has invested in the grass roots and giving those club teams the avenue to give adaptive athletes the chance to play. Also the national team has contributed to that growth just by winning at the Paralympics and getting kids excited to try sled hockey that otherwise might not have.”

There have been some significant changes for Farmer since the last Paralympics gold medal. Farmer was still finishing his economics degree in the two years that followed his last Paralympics and balancing some training with the national team when he wasn’t on campus.

“Princeton was awesome,” said Farmer. “The hockey program was so good to me. They let me skate as much as I wanted whenever there was dead time during the week my whole four years there. They let a teammate of mine join me who went to The College of New Jersey.”

Then-TCNJ student Jack Wallace would meet Farmer for workouts at Princeton’s Hobey Baker Rink. The set-up was a huge upgrade for Farmer who had limited practice time and training opportunities in his native Tampa. At Princeton, he found a model that he has tried to maintain even after college graduation.

“It’s honestly better to develop new skills when it’s a small group of two or three,” said Farmer.

“Jack and I were able to do a lot. We both improved a ton over our time in college. That was just going against each other. We’re both really competitive with each other and push each other hard. We got out of our comfort zone with different skill learning. We were skating hard four times a week and that was an improvement for me.”

Training, though, came to a halt when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Farmer moved off campus and completed his schooling.

“I didn’t skate for three months, which is the longest I’d gone without skating since I probably joined the national team,” said Farmer. “We didn’t get back together officially until March 2021. It was a super long time away from the team.”

Farmer had a chance to train with some fellow national team members when they moved together to Nashville, Tenn., following his graduation. There was nothing officially connected with Team USA, but the set-up allowed Farmer and some teammates to train and continue to develop their skills. When the team reunited a year ago, and then fully assembled this January to train for Beijing, their work ramped up.

“There are different stick-handling maneuvers, wall work, picking pucks off the wall and stuff like that,” said Farmer.

“We’ve been developing some new skill moves. What we focus on here as a group in Nashville training together is competing hard. That’s the thing that our coach, Dave Hoff, is always stressing — we compete hard and that’s how we learn. We don’t work on plays too much in practice. It’s all game situation stuff. We get the most out of it because we have such a competitive team.”

This year’s U.S. team is favored again because of its experience and skill, and Farmer’s goal-scoring ability is a big factor. Most of the team has played together before, and they are hungry to prove themselves again. They haven’t gotten the same amount of
exhibition games as they might in normal years, but the United States team feels prepared to defend its gold after a solid month-plus of training together.

“It’s only about two people each year that retire and move on, and new guys move up and take their place or new military guys or whatever come in,” said Farmer.

“The team is very tight. The core has been together for a while. The new guys always fit in seamlessly. I love the guys. We’re a super close group. We have great chemistry on and off the ice. We love hanging out with each other.”

Sled hockey has been an integral part of Farmer’s life. He kept playing and training through his studies at Princeton, and now has had the chance to focus full-time on the sport that has become a passion.

“I always wanted to just do hockey for a couple years after college,” said Farmer.

“I’d always balanced being on the national team with high school or Princeton. It’s been really fun to just do all hockey and put the extra hours in the gym and focus on recovery and nutrition and sleep, all the little one percent improvements. I’m hoping that will make the difference.”