Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. If you've been keeping up with the Winter Olympics, I have some good news for you. The games are not over yet. The Winter Paralympics kick off in Milan on March 6th. So today we're going to zoom in to one Winter Paralympic sport, sled hockey or para ice hockey. Here to make us smart about it is Declan Farmer, the three-time gold medalist in sled hockey. We're catching him before he heads to Milan. Declan, welcome to the show. Hey, Kimberly. Thank you so much for having me on. Declan, thank you so much for making time for us in between your practices for the Paralympics. I know you're getting ready to head over. For those who aren't familiar with the sport, What is sled hockey? Sled hockey is an adaptive version of typical stand-up ice hockey. So the biggest difference is in equipment. We are sitting in what's called a sled. So basically you just have a kind of a contraption that's on the ice. You still have two skate blades. You're just kind of sitting on top of it, and they're kind of mounted to a metal frame. And then you have what's called like a bucket that just goes around like your hips and thighs and butt. It's basically kind of like a cast form that just holds you tight to the rest of the sled. And then instead of one stick, you have two sticks. They're a bit shorter and they have ice picks on the bottom. So think kind of cross-country skiing style for skating. And then if you want to handle the puck or shoot, you slide your hands down to the butt end of the stick to do that. So you're doing everything with your upper body. It's still full contact. It's five on five with a goalie. It's all the same rules as stand-up hockey, just with the equipment adaptations. When did you start playing sled hockey? I started when I was eight years old. I used two prosthetics, two-leg prosthetics to walk since I was a kid. So I started pretty young. And yeah, it was the first disabled sport I tried. And I just love the camaraderie of it. I like that there was some speed, some physicality, just kind of the multi-dimensions, dimensionality of hockey. And it just kind of stuck with me. And I think I, you know, played it for fun as a kid and then kind of got serious with it within a few years. So talk about your journey to be a Paralympian. Yeah, I didn't know what the Paralympics were when I first started playing sled hockey. I don't think I even saw them until 2010, which was the Vancouver Games. I was 12 years old at the time. So I think around that time, I started playing it more seriously, going to tournaments outside of my home state of Florida. And that's when I realized like, hey, I'm like, you know, pretty good for my age group here. And I think I can make a run at this. I started getting more motivated, training, skating more. And I made the Sochi Paralympic team when I was, it was 16 at those games. So I was a sophomore in high school. And that's kind of when things got started. And then you know training for Milan which will be my fourth games here Who is Team USA biggest rival heading into the games in Milan Canada is definitely our biggest rival It's similar to a lot of the other divisions of hockey, the men's, women's stand-up teams. I mean, everyone involved with hockey at least is familiar with the Four Nations Cup this past year where U.S. and Canada, you know, they have the big fights and all that stuff. And it's definitely a similar rivalry in sled hockey where Canada and U.S. kind of are each other's toughest competition these days. We play them a lot. We don't like them. They don't like us. And, you know, part of what makes a rivalry great is, you know, you respect your opponent to a certain extent where we feel like if we're not bringing our best, like we have a chance where we could lose. And that's like, you know, that's the fun part about sports where it can kind of go either way. And, you know, you get those butterflies and stuff before the games. And it's just, you know, really intense out there on the ice, whether it's an exhibition game or, you know, in a Paralympic championship. Talk a little bit about the rest of the team, Team USA for the sled hockey team. We have a great team. We have, I think, this season we'll have four first-time Paralympians. olympians um they're all teenagers they're some incredible players i think they each like you know have different strengths and weaknesses um and really just it's exciting to go into games with some new players who are you know our team has had a lot of success over the years so i think lately some of the younger guys come in and you know they're really humble and they just want to kind of blend in with the team. But I think our culture with our leadership is really like kind of sending the message to these young guys like, hey, you guys are like phenomenal talents. If you put in the work, you're actually going to improve a lot more than any of us older guys and veterans on the team will. So we need them to buy in and really realize like they're the kind of like X factors for us at the games. I think that's what makes us a great team where everyone is kind of bought in in different ways and is ready to contribute. All right, we need to take a quick break, but we're going to be right back with Paralympian Declan Farmer. All right, we are back. The 2024 Summer Paralympic Games really broke the record for Paralympics viewership. How has that affected the way that you've been thinking about your games leading up to this year? It's fantastic. I mean, the Summer Paralympics is the third largest sporting event in the world as far as participants and scale of the events. And winter has fewer sports, but it's really great to see the strides the Paralympic movement in general is making it, when it's viewed by billions of people around the world and it's recognized, people know what the Paralympics are. I think there's some studies recently that it's one of the most recognized brands or names of an event in the world That just means there more opportunity for people with disabilities They just regular people that want to play sports that want to get involved in their communities When the Paralympics grow and people know about it that just kind of you know it spreads to everything else And kids who and adults who are recently injured that are trying to get back in society and, you know, being active, participating members and, you know, want to get out and move and be social again. when they see the Paralympics, it can connect them and give them ideas to kind of local organizations where they can get out and play some sports. And it's just fantastic to be a part of that movement. Yeah. Speaking of which, for the folks who will undoubtedly fall in love with sled hockey watching the Paralympic Games this year, where can they see y'all play or other teams like yours play in their own communities? It really depends. So it's on a community by community basis. There's lots of like, depending on where you live, just adaptive sport organizations that'll run several different sports from wheelchair basketball to sled hockey to, you know, whatever it is. If you're in a ski town, you know, there's, there's always like an adaptive ski center there. For sled hockey, there's a lot of like NHL support. So if you're, if you live in a market that has an NHL team, there's almost definitely going to be some sled hockey team that's associated with that NHL club, like on a community hockey level. So if you just kind of get out there, look on USA Hockey's website for, you know, teams near you, there's a pretty easy way to get involved with some sports. All right. So what Paralympic winter sports are you going to be excited to watch, obviously, aside from the other sled hockey games? Yeah, I mean, I always get so excited to watch the Winter Paralympics. There's some really cool sports. I think probably personal for me, I love the skiing, downhill alpine skiing, especially the mono sit skiing. I do that for fun when hockey season's over in the spring. So to see them do it, it's just crazy because these Olympic and Paralympic courses, they're often like super steep and sometimes like really icy. So they're pretty dangerous. I mean, you know, I don't know how fast they go, like 80 miles an hour, like just on a knife edge. It's really thrilling to watch. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. When you're not being a Paralympic star, what do you do in your downtime or your work? So for work, it's, you know, just all Paralympics right now. We have to commit so much time to it from just not only the day-to-day training, which, you know, takes several hours, but also traveling multiple times a month to different competitions or training camps. It really just fills your time. But when I'm not doing that, I live out here in Colorado, so I kind of like all the outdoorsy stuff. I like to bike. I like to go camping, hiking, swimming in the rivers out here. I like to read, just kind of that lifestyle a little bit. Yeah this has come up quite a bit over the years when we cover the Olympics from an economics perspective is just the like financial strain on athletes because you have to give so much of your time to the sports Like what are the sort of some of the economic considerations for you and the other Paralympians heading into the Winter Games Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Because it is, you know, Olympic and Paralympic sport kind of, it's born out of like the idea of amateur sports and just doing it for fun and competing. but the reality is like you it literally takes too much time to be able to you know there's some rare exceptions where someone can get a really good situation at work you know you know someone personally that lets you take a lot of time off but you know realistically you can't just take time off from a standard job multiple times a month and then you know best case scenario you literally have no other time off you're only spending all your time off to go train and compete so So Paralympians and Olympians need financial support outside of that. And I think that's grown over the years, especially on the Paralympic side, trying to bring that up to the standard that Olympic athletes get. But, you know, on average, if you compare the Paralympic sport to its Olympic counterpart, the Paralympians are making less from their national governing bodies, which is, you know, the sport federation you're associated with, whatever sport it is, and then as well as, you know, Team USA. So, you know, we've had some great sled hockey players retire in their mid-20s over the years because they just simply, you know, can't make it work financially. And, you know, hopefully we're past those days where, you know, the financial side of it's growing. But there's still – it's still pretty tough for some of the guys. You know, there's sponsors around the games, but that's only – you know, we have a 17-member team. And it's only typically a handful of people that get even a single sponsor just from sheer numbers point of view. So Team USA is totally privately funded. So I think the more people that donate and give to Team USA, the more that they can support their athletes and, you know, help us make ends meet so that we can, you know, train to try to win some medals at the games. Well, go Team USA. Thank you so much, Declan Farmer, Paralympic gold medalist in sled hockey. Can't wait to watch your games. And thanks again. Thank you so much. Have a good one. We are going to have lots of resources where you can watch the games and support Team USA in our show notes. But that is it for us today. Let us know if you're planning to tune into the Winter Paralympics this year, what events you're going to be watching. You can leave us a voicemail at 508-UBSMART or email us at MakeMeSmart at Marketplace.org. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergseeker. Today's program was engineered by John Fokey. Ben Talladeh and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our interim supervisory senior producer is Stephanie Seek. Nancy Farghali is executive producer of Marketplace Shows. And Marketplace's vice president and general manager is Neil Scarborough. Thank you.
