Sled Hockey has taken Iowa native Kevin McKee, a four-time Paralympic gold medalist and Team USA player, from the Quad Cities to some of the world’s biggest stages.

It all started at eight years old, when his mom dropped his sister off for ice skating practice at a local rink in Davenport and spotted an ad for a sled hockey event.

When McKee tried it for the first time, he knew it was different from other sports he’d tried. “When I jumped into the sled, I really liked it because of how fast it was,” he said. “You felt free.”

McKee was born with a condition called Caudal Regression Syndrome, which means he is missing the lower part of his spine, has dislocated hips, and fused knees and ankles.
This means for most activities, he’s wheelchair bound. In sports like wheelchair basketball and lacrosse, athletes stay in wheelchairs, whereas sled hockey allows athletes to switch out the wheelchairs for customized sleds.

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Kevin McKee skates down the ice during a preliminary match in the Paralympics against Germany on March 9, 2026. (Photo By Marco Mantovani/Getty Images)

His roots started in Iowa with the Quad City Sled Hockey Association in Davenport. When McKee started, the team was in its infancy and was more of a recreational program. There were a few competitive players, and that year, they put together a team and played against a team from St. Louis that had another developing program.

The St. Louis team developed more quickly than Davenport, and McKee was invited to play with them in a few competitions. Here, his love for the game grew along with his knowledge.

While at a national tournament with the St. Louis team at age 15, McKee was invited to go to a summer camp put on by Team USA. This comes truly full circle as McKee now helps at the camp where he once attended. It was at that camp, where Team USA coaches and players help younger and beginner players learn the skills of the game, that he learned more about the Paralympics.

McKee made the US Developmental team when he was 16, with hopes of one day making the National team. But the path wasn’t straight to the top. After two attempts and continued determination, McKee finally made the team with his third tryout for the 2010-2011 season, making the 2026 season his 16th.

After the difficulties of making the national team, keeping up with the responsibilities and schedule of the team is just as difficult.

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Kevin McKee faces off against Team People’s Republic of China’s goalie, Yanzhao Jim in a Preliminary Match during the Paralympics on March 10, 2026.

McKee says, “It’s kind of like a full-time job.”

Many players are involved with either schooling, the military, or commit full-time to sled hockey.
The demanding schedule starts in September with team tryouts and then the first tournament in October. The competition season runs from October to the end of April or early May.

Along with national team responsibilities, athletes also compete with local club teams. McKee plays with a team based in Chicago, as it’s the closest to him. This means about two to three weekends out of a month are used for either national team or club activities.

“It takes a lot of work to be on this team,” McKee said. “[You are] training pretty much five, six days a week at home, and then, we’ll travel, and it’s a grind. You’ve got to work out and skate pretty much every day. Everything’s got to be about hockey, so you only really get a couple of months off in the summer, and that’s about it.”

But the heavy workload and wealth of talent aren’t the only things that define Team USA; off the ice, it holds the moments that McKee will remember the most.

“Those are the memories you make, just the playing pranks, going out to eat, going on adventures in different towns and cities that you’re in,” McKee explained.

These moments make the work feel worth it and create a culture within the team.

“It makes it really hard to stop playing the game,” McKee said. “It’s a lot of fun.

This dedication and depth of talent found on Team U.S.A. is the foundation of their domination in the sled hockey world.

The U.S. National Sled Hockey Team is one of the most dominant teams in the world, with five Paralympic gold medals, four of which were won consecutively, seven world championship gold medals, 12 Para-Hockey Cup titles, and four international Para-Hockey titles.

“It’s truly an honor to wear the red, white, and blue every year,“ McKee stated, “It’s really hard to make this team, so every year, you can’t take it for granted that you’re automatically going to be on the team.”

The top level of the sled hockey world, referred to by McKee as the “NHL of sled hockey,” is the Paralympics, held every four years, bringing with it the largest number of fans, media coverage, and status. This past March, the games were held in Milan, Italy.

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Kevin McKee battles for the puck against Team Republic of China’s Jujiang Wang in a preliminary game during the Paralympics on March 10, 2026. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images.)

In preparation for the 2026 season, McKee was looking forward to his fourth Paralympic experience. It was shaping up to be another exciting season until a freak collision left him with a broken femur, 30 minutes into his first practice of the season, jeopardizing his Paralympic dreams. The event was held in the Czech Republic, where he received surgery a couple of hours later, and was flown home a few days after.

Back home, McKee didn’t give up.

After 5 days, he was already back in the gym working out. “I just kind of had that mindset, like, ‘Hey, just keep going.’ You never know what could happen. Like, just keep working at it,” McKee said.

The injury could have ended his season, but instead, it created a new mindset.

“Part of me just, like, said, you know what? You don’t use your legs for sled hockey. Like, I really don’t have an excuse for why I can’t go to the gym, why I can’t do everything upper body.”

Even with an unbreakable mindset, McKee still considers this the toughest part of his career.

Eight weeks after the accident, McKee was cleared to participate in a team residency in Colorado, where they practice and train with each other. Here, he was one of five players in the running for three spots on the Paralympic team. After a series of practices, the final roster was announced with McKee’s name on it, proving all of his hard work was worth it.

Arriving in Milan, McKee wasn’t just arriving at a new location, but a new chance to continue his and Team USA’s Paralympics legacy.

McKee’s first Paralympics were the 2014 games in Sochi. One of the most memorable moments of his career was skating out for warmups to see the thousands of fans in the arena, being the largest crowd he’d played in front of before.

The 2018 games brought out the most emotions Mckee’s ever had in a game. In the gold medal game, a miscommunication led to a Canadian player skating past McKee with an open net in front of him, but he hit a bar with the puck bouncing back at McKee. The puck rolled off, making McKee think he blew it yet again. Speeding by, Declan Farmer came and scored to send it to overtime with a little over 30 seconds left. Farmer scored again in overtime to win the US their 3rd Consecutive gold medal and McKee his 2nd. This was the most exciting game McKee had ever been a part of and shows what the Paralympics are all about.

2022’s games provided a more restricted experience due to COVID. There were no fans, stricter rules, less travel, and less interaction.

This year’s games in Milan provided a look back into normalcy, with the ability to explore the town and its food, which McKee describes as amazing.

As for gameplay, the U.S. dominated in all five of its games, starting with an opening 14-1 win against Italy. In the gold medal game against Canada, Team USA won 6-2 after outscoring their opponents 40-4 overall.

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The U.S. National Team and Staff pose for a photo after their 6-1 gold medal win against Canada in the Paralympics on March 15, 2026 (Photo by James Fearn/ Getty Images for IPC)

That final game was attended by a record number of 11,500 fans, the most in Paralympic history, breaking a record set a few games earlier during the Germany vs U.S. game, and a record 1.2 million viewers at home reported by NBC Sports, showing the growing popularity of sled hockey.

One of those viewers was Ankeny High School Teacher Sean Cano, “Sled hockey is just cool to watch,” he shared. “I feel like they don’t get enough credit for being in the Paralympics, because I feel like it’s something that not many people know that it happens [after the Olympics].”

These records and reactions are exactly why McKee is committed to the growth of Sled hockey in the U.S. through different levels.

“Especially in the U.S., Sled Hockey has grown big time,” McKee states. As an athlete representative on the USA hockey board of directors, he says he’s “definitely trying to look out for the sport and trying to push for whatever we can do, if that’s funding, or more tournaments, or anything like that.”

The USA hockey program has put on a lot of camps, with McKee enjoying helping out the community.

“I really take pride in doing that stuff,” McKee said.
”I kind of went through that kind of system, so I want that opportunity for other athletes and other kids, because you never know what could happen.”

Ankeny High School senior and former Des Moines Capitals hockey player, Brett Augustine, remembers that while playing youth hockey, a sled hockey player came in and helped out with coaching.

“He knew a lot about the game,” Augustine said. “It was cool to see how he would do things and how that would be different from what other people would do.”

This is the type of community impact McKee strives for.

McKee’s growth and support-centered mindset go beyond his own career. Mckee’s wife, Erika McKee, is the captain of the women’s sled hockey team and the pioneer of women’s sled hockey in the U.S.

Erika was the first woman on the U.S. developmental team and, in 2009, was denied the opportunity to play with the men’s national team. Currently, there is not enough participation in the women’s division for it to become a Paralympic sport, but every year, with more funding, support, and an increase in participation, the goal gets closer to fruition.

This shows McKee’s commitment to both his wife and the growth of sled hockey. Throughout his career, he’s gone from a young developing player to a leader on and off the ice, helping to shape the growth of sled hockey. From mentoring younger athletes to fighting for more opportunities at the highest level, McKee’s career and impact have extended beyond gold medals and championships.