Sled hockey player Kevin McKee is going for gold again at the 2026 Paralympics games this weekend.
Already decorated with three gold medals from the last three Paralympics, the athlete from Davenport is coming off an injury and hoping to complete a trifecta of wins for U.S. Hockey after the men's and women’s teams won gold in the Olympics a few weeks ago.
“After they won, I was like, ‘Oh, shoot. Well, there's two out of three. Now, we got to do our part,’” he said.
McKee was born with caudal regression syndrome and has used a wheelchair his entire life, but he’s always been into sports and active with friends.
“My main way of transportation when I was a kid in the neighborhood was on a skateboard,” he said. “And it's kind of funny that I ended up playing sled hockey, because I did the same motion on my hands, scooting around.”
When he was about 10 years old, his sister was figure skating at the local rink and she saw a flyer for a sled hockey event.
“I fell in love with the sport because it was another piece of equipment that I could get out of my wheelchair, and I felt real free when I played,” McKee said. “And I love the speed of it.”
When playing sled hockey, athletes sit in a bucket molded to them and balance on two blades below them. In their hands, they have two hockey sticks with metal picks at the end. They propel themselves forward with a motion similar to cross country skiing and they put their hands on the ice to balance and do turns.
“What makes this sport so hard is you have to use your hands to not only skate, but then to puck handle, pass, shoot and also maneuver, so you don't get your head taken off when people are trying to hit you,” he said. “It's a really fun sport. It takes a lot of practice to get good at it.”
It’s also very physical, a challenge that he enjoys in adaptive sports.
“You get stabbed on accident and on purpose a lot, and sometimes you do it to yourself,” McKee said.
McKee said as he has gotten further into his career, he appreciates the team aspect even more, from the camaraderie in the locker room to helping a teammate score with a great pass to big moments like an overtime win — which happened at the 2018 games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
He also said the team is an environment where the athletes are surrounded by other disabled people and there’s no coddling.
“We're all comfortable with each other, and we're all competitors, especially at this level. We all want to be there, and it's tough to make these teams,” McKee said.
Team U.S. will be competing in the gold medal game on Sunday against Canada.
If they win, it will be the team's fifth consecutive gold medal.
