CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Scattered across the Cortina Paralympic Village are signs reminding athletes to vote in the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Athletes’ Council election.

With voting open from March 4-13, Paralympians can choose from five candidates across three winter sports for the three available positions on a council that gives athletes a voice in the IPC’s strategic direction. Of those running, there’s one American: Para ice hockey’s Declan Farmer. If you ask any of his teammates, it’d hardly be a surprise to see the 28-year-old’s name and photo tacked on posters throughout the village.

“If you’re on the team with Tom Brady, you’re not going to not listen to him, right?” two-time Paralympian Griffin LaMarre said. “Everyone gets to watch what he’s doing and the work he’s putting in. He just has the respect of everybody in the world to say, ‘OK, whatever he’s saying, whether it doesn’t make sense to me at the moment, I should take it and make my adjustments.’”

It is obvious why Farmer garners such admiration from his teammates. He has spent half his life skating for his country, making his international sled hockey debut at 14, and is a five-time world champion and a three-time Paralympic champion.

It didn’t take long for Farmer’s teammates to figure out he was the “real deal.” Five-time Paralympian Josh Pauls, who was a flag bearer during last week’s opening ceremony, remembers when he was an up-and-coming player — he made his first Paralympic team in 2010 — players primarily used one hand. If right-handed, they would cross the stick over to the other side and pull the puck over. Farmer was one of the first to focus on using both hands.

Farmer, who was born a bilateral amputee, made his Paralympic debut at the Sochi Games in 2014, helping the United States win back-to-back Paralympic titles for the first time. That year, he was named the IPC’s Best Male Athlete and won an ESPY award. The success continued in 2018 and 2022, with the U.S. winning its third and fourth consecutive Paralympic titles. He became the first U.S. sled hockey player to score over 200 career goals and holds the U.S. record in career goals, assists and points.

There is more to his game than goals, though. During a tournament in Canada, Pauls remembers a young Farmer backtracking to his own goal line and pulling the puck to save a score.

“He’s more than just an offensive player,” Pauls said.

Josh Pauls (right) celebrates with Declan Farmer after scoring against China on Tuesday. (James Fearn / Getty Images for IPC)

It’s one thing to be really good; it’s another to take ownership of a team. In Colorado, where the Tampa native now lives, Farmer has helped create a hub with about 10 other U.S. players who frequently train together. He helps organize training sessions, focusing on practising potential in-game happenings. It might be repetitive, but it’s vital come game time.

It’s a role that began at Princeton, when he started skating four or five days a week with teammate and New Jersey native Jack Wallace. Farmer started thinking about what he could do with two people on the ice together. Farmer has the ability, Wallace said, to train for certain game situations. Take the wall-work drill the team was doing at one of its residency practices. Rather than just having players run the puck around off the boards, Farmer had players coming in at angles as if there were a defender on them.

After graduating from Princeton in 2020, Farmer moved to Nashville and got creative with a bigger group during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that carried on to Colorado. Inspired by game film, the notes app on his phone is filled with drill ideas from the past six years.

“One, what are some things that were just easy stuff we’re messing up on?” Farmer said before the Games. “And two, what are some skills that if we did develop them, we could actually have made this play or made things easier?”

Declan Farmer scored three goals and had two assists against China on Tuesday. (Darrian Traynor / Getty Images)

The training process can be collaborative, as coaches, despite their extensive hockey background, don’t have the lived experience of the athletes because they come from standup hockey. Plus, the sport has only been in the Games since 1994, whereas standup hockey has been a part of the Olympic program since 1920.

“People just think he’s talented. Yes, he’s talented, but he works at it every single day,” said Dan Brennan, the general manager of the sled national team since it was incorporated into USA Hockey in July 2006. “He’s not satisfied. And if you see us in practice, if I make a bad pass to him, he lets me have it. That’s the compete level he has. And because of it, all his teammates look up to him and emulate his effort.”

The U.S. has dominated this relatively new Paralympic sport and is hunting for a fifth consecutive title. Farmer is racking up the numbers this week to try to make that happen.

Already at these Games, he has scored 11 goals and seven assists in victories over Italy, Germany and China, becoming the first American to reach the 50-point mark in Paralympic history during the 13-0 preliminary win over Germany. A semifinal on Friday awaits.

“He’s single-handedly pushed the ceiling of this sport,” Wallace said. “And he’s not just doing it for himself. He’s pulling us along with him.”