Buffalo 2025: Declan Farmer focused on winning world title back

For the first time in seven years and only the second time in his 11-year international career, U.S. Para ice hockey star forward Declan Farmer will enter the World Para Ice Hockey Championships A-Pool not as a defending champion. 

Showing up with the taste of revenge in his mouth, Farmer will look to one-better Team USA’s silver-medal finish against Canada last season when it hosts the event in Buffalo, New York from May 24-31 at LECOM Harborcenter.

“I’m not sure if anything necessarily went wrong in that gold-medal game, other than not being able to finish our chances, but that’s part of hockey,” said Farmer, who had 20 points in that tournament. “The great part about hockey is that anything can happen once you’re on the ice, any team can win at any time. The parity in the sport is improving, shown by both semifinal games last year being basically one-goal games.”

The World Championships will feature eight teams playing across two groups, with the top five finishers from the event earning qualification spots for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. The USA, which holds the all-time record at six world titles, will be in Group B with Czechia, Slovakia and Norway. Group A features current champion Canada, China, Germany and South Korea.

Farmer, who has been playing the sport since age 9, is a three-time Paralympic gold medalist (2022, 2018, 2014) and four-time world champion (2023, 2021, 2019, 2015). He holds Team USA’s career records for goals (203), assists (154) and points (357) entering this season.

Farmer was only 17 when he cracked the roster for the 2015 edition the World Championships that took place in Buffalo — his second World Championships appearance — and went on to play a starring role. 

The USA’s first goal in their 3-0 victory over Canada in the gold-medal game – a successful shot by Farmer nearly three minutes into the third period – proved to be the game-winning score and electrified the host nation crowd for the remainder of the night. The goal was featured on ESPN’s SportsCenter show with Farmer being called the hero of the game by media around the world.

Last night, Declan Farmer became the first U.S. National Sled Hockey Team player to hit 200 career goals 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/GVdWkVghDz

— USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 20, 2025

Reflecting on the 2015 event, Farmer commented: 

“I remember it being a great, intimate venue, and with its proximity to Canada, it should be standing-room only like in 2015 if we end up matching up against Canada at some point in the tournament. I also remember that tournament being one of the first where the team reached its potential offensively — we were able to put the puck in the net at a pretty high rate for the first time in team history.”

May will mark the third time the U.S. hosts the event, which has major implications on the line this time around as a Paralympic qualifier. The host nation enters the tournament as the most dominant team in the sport — and perhaps any Paralympic sport — over the last decade. 

“I’m most looking forward to playing in front of a home crowd. Buffalo is a very passionate hockey city, so I expect we’ll have some really engaged fans in attendance throughout the week,” Farmer said. “It’s difficult to talk about [Team USA] as a dynasty when we’re not even the defending world champions, so the first step and main focus is to win the title back and secure the No. 1 seed for the Milano [Cortina 2026] Games.”

As someone always striving for more, Farmer has aspirations for both the U.S. team and the sport, beyond Buffalo, too.

“The goal is to win Paralympic gold with the group of players we have now — many of whom haven’t won anything,” he said. “I’m, and my veteran teammates, aren’t satisfied with past success. Off the ice, I want to help in bringing parity to the sport at a much deeper level. It would really be a dream for there to be six-plus teams who could all challenge for a gold medal.”

More information about the Buffalo 2025 World Para Ice Hockey Championships A-Pool can be found here.