Team USA sled hockey defenseman Jack Wallace is big and fast. A combination he admits is rare on the ice and makes him so dynamic. His strength and speed allow him to take risks others can’t afford. These opportunities have helped him earn two Paralympic gold medals and four world championships. However, the chance to win isn’t why he plays the game. Wallace plays so he can seize every ounce out of his second chance at life. 

I love hockey. I get this crazy opportunity, I'm lucky to be here, so let's make the most of it. I’m living on bonus time

Make no mistake, this year’s ‘Best Defenseman’ at the World Para Ice Hockey Championship, enjoys being successful. Wallace simply knows his career on the ice is about so much more than his record. “Winning is way more fun than losing. But I also get the opportunity to live out my dream of being a full-time athlete,” Wallace said. 

He thought the dream of making hockey his profession died 17 years ago, when his life changed forever in an instant. Wallace was spending the week on Lake George in Upstate New York to celebrate the upcoming Fourth of July holiday with his family. He and his sister, Colleen, were waterskiing in tandem behind the boat his father was driving. They were enjoying being “pretty good at it” and crisscrossing each other, but as often happens, his sister fell. Wallace dropped his rope so he could be in the water, too, so as to not leave his sister behind. Then he said his dad circled the boat to get the ski ropes back to him and his sister, when he was accidentally pulled under the boat. “I got hit by the boat, and then the propeller ended up just kind of destroying my right leg. It was from basically my glute all the way down to my heel, was just completely chopped,” Wallace said.

Luckily, Wallace said his dad immediately pulled him out of the water and put a tourniquet on his leg, which he credits with saving his life. He said while something obviously went wrong on that tragic July 3, 2008 day, a lot of things also went right for him to still be here. In addition to the tourniquet, his dad used an old radio to send out distress signals after the accident, since they didn’t have a cell phone on the boat. Wallace says a retired sheriff heard the call and jumped into action. The man instructed his father to drive to a particular marina, and he had an ambulance waiting when the boat arrived to take the then 10-year-old Wallace to the trauma center. “If we had to go driving around the lake, or if my dad had to go park the boat and get the car I almost definitely would have bled out. It was this kind of miraculous thing that I stayed alive,” Wallace said.

He survived the injury after being in a coma for three days and on hospital bed rest for six weeks. Wallace had his right leg amputated above the knee and soon figured he’d be back to normal playing every sport under the sun like he loved to do. “I got my first prosthetic, went to the garage, put on my rollerblades and tried to skate around the driveway. Did not work at all. It was an absolute train wreck. That sucked a lot, because I think that was kind of when the realization hit that a lot of my hopes and dreams of being an NHL player weren’t a possibility anymore,” Wallace said.

Understandably, he said this was “really tough” and he felt like he was losing every part of his life. Wallace said he even stopped watching the New Jersey Devils after typically never missing a game with his brother and dad. “I didn't want to even think about hockey anymore for a while and there's also the social aspect, where I wasn't going to football practice, I wasn't going to lacrosse, I wasn't going to those practices and hanging out with all those kids,” Wallace said.

The following summer he went to Camp No Limits for the first time and everything changed. The organization provides camps and support for kids and their families dealing with limb loss. Wallace said what he saw on day one opened his eyes. “It's the first time I'd ever seen an amputee play sports. I thought that sports had been taken away from me, and then, literally, the first day, I see a quadruple amputee, he's got the blades on and he has no arms and he's throwing around a football and a frisbee and sprinting down the field and catching them,” Wallace said. 

Then, a volunteer at Camp No Limits introduced him to the sport of sled hockey, and he said everything started coming back after his first time on the ice. “I took one lap and come back to the door with a huge smile on my face, and I just look at her. I go, Mom, I'm back on the ice, I scream it and she starts crying,” Wallace said. The rest followed: hanging out with teammates, locker room jokes and playing pranks. He said it was a cathartic process to get many aspects of his life back which he thought were gone forever. Wallace went on to be a camper for many years then a mentor and said he still tries to visit each year.

Fast forward to present day and Wallace has been competing for the National Sled Hockey Team for nearly a decade. The two-time Paralympic gold medalist currently is competing in an invite-only tryout in Minot, North Dakota, where official selections begin for the team that will represent the U.S. at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games. The U.S. sled hockey team is looking to bring home their fifth consecutive gold medal. He said eventually a squad of 17 players, which he’s expected to be a part of, will be selected. 

Wallace said for nine weeks leading up to the Games, the teammates will live and train together in Boulder, Colorado. “It won't be really a question about if guys are in shape, or if guys are tuned up for the Games,” Wallace said. He said this U.S. squad is a tight-knit brotherhood, ready to carry on the legacy of the team. “We have probably our most experienced roster ever. The best team that’s ever skated onto the ice,” Wallace said. He said training is a full-time job: on the ice four or five days a week, in the gym six days a week, multiple times a day. 

The defenseman said in addition to being physically fit, they have a game plan to be successful in Italy. “Pressuring their team down low and getting pucks to the middle of the ice no matter what. It clearly worked in Buffalo,” Wallace said. Buffalo — where the team beat Canada in the gold medal game 6-1 to reclaim the world title at the end of May.

Wallace was named best defenseman at worlds, a title he also earned at the 2022 Paralympic Games. But to no one’s surprise he has no plans of slowing down any time soon. He said he hopes to play through the 2034 Paralympic Games. “I will play the sport until I either no longer like it, or my body tells me that I can't play,” Wallace said. 

While he’s clearly in a groove, there’s one thing that still stops Wallace in his tracks every time he suits up for Team USA. “We have a set time where everyone sits down, our captain said something, and we all put on the jerseys together. And to this day, still get chills. It's a super cool moment,” Wallace said. He says the tradition is emblematic of the team’s camaraderie and chemistry.

 We're all playing for a country. We're representing everyone in the United States, but it's a lot of playing for the guy next to you

Sled hockey begins at the 2026 Paralympic Games on March 7.