Jack Wallace Has Three Golds on Ice. He’s Now Chasing Gold on Water.
Jack Wallace lost his right leg in a water skiing accident when he was ten years old. The first thing he did when he got his prosthetic was put on his old rollerblades.
"I got home and I was like, okay, how can I keep playing hockey. But skating with a prosthetic in rollerblades is not very suitable."
That following summer, a local program in Woodbridge, New Jersey changed everything. On the team was Josh Pauls — fresh off a Paralympic gold medal performance at the Vancouver Games. Wallace was eleven. He had never heard of the Paralympics.
"He brought that medal home and showed me and my dad. And that was it. I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. A year ago my dream was to play in the NHL for the Devils. A year later, it's: I can't skate standing up, but I can play sled hockey and go win a gold medal at the Paralympics."
He now has three Paralympic golds.
Pressure Is a Privilege
Wallace, 27, is a defenseman on the U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey Team, the most dominant program in the history of the sport. At Milano Cortina 2026, he was named best defenseman for the second consecutive Paralympics. In the gold medal game against Canada, in front of a sold-out arena and record viewership, he clocked a hat trick.
His teammates had called it the night before.
"Evan specifically was saying, 'I think Jack's going to get a hat trick tomorrow…he's been quiet all tournament.' I had gotten a hat trick in the gold medal game at Worlds the year before and they were like, 'Just do it again.' And then I did."
When asked about the pressure of a gold medal game, Wallace doesn't flinch.
"Pressure is a privilege. It just makes you feel it. All your training, all the time you spend preparing, coming into one moment and paying off. As an athlete and a competitor, there's no way to describe that rush…hitting this next level of focus and concentration. It's just such an amazing feeling."
The World Is Watching Now
When Wallace first started playing in 2009, almost nobody outside the disabled sports community knew sled hockey existed. The sport has transformed around him in ways that still catch him off guard.
"When I first started playing, nobody knew what the sport was unless you had a friend who played or you were involved in the Paralympics. Outside of those circles, you had no idea it existed. And now I've gotten to meet a good amount of NHL and PWHL players, and they all know what sled hockey is and occasionally watch our games."
The crossover moment that sticks with him most was dropping the puck at a New Jersey Devils game and chatting with Jack Hughes.
"You could see the support and how happy he was for us. Obviously we were all pumped for him to win gold, but he was just as pumped for us. I heard after the game how they were watching, rooting us on, cheering for us. The hockey community has really embraced not only sled hockey but all forms of disabled hockey. It's a world of difference from when I started."
The Wikipedia Method
Wallace, it turns out, is also chasing his first appearance at a Summer Games.
The dream began over coffee in 2018, when he and teammate Brody Roybal were joking about how summer Paralympic athletes get to train in warm, beautiful places.
"We literally pulled up the Wikipedia page for the Summer Paralympics and went through the sports."
Wallace found para rowing, the national team trained fifteen minutes from his college in New Jersey. He tried it but the classification system worked against him. He shifted to para canoe, where the field was full of single above-knee amputees like himself. He trained hard, chased Tokyo, but lost time to COVID and a reconstructive elbow surgery.
From 2022 to 2024, he trained to qualify for Paris. He missed qualifying by 0.008 of a second.
"That definitely stung. But para canoe is definitely still on my mind for LA28."
And right after winning gold in Milan, the universe apparently agreed it was time to get back to work. On the train from Zermatt to Milan following a family ski trip, he and his family crossed a bridge over a small river. A full sprint kayak crew was training directly beneath them.
"I was literally thinking about para canoe that day, wondering when I'd get back on the water. And then I see this full crew of boats right underneath us. I'm like, there's my sign. I've got to get back.”
ABOUT THIS SERIES
I'm Amy Wotovich and I am on a mission to interview 100% of Team USA's 2026 Olympic and Paralympic athletes to create the most comprehensive mindset record of a single Games cycle. What do elite competitors actually believe about pressure, identity, failure, and joy? Jack Wallace is one of hundreds of athletes sharing their unfiltered answers. Follow the journey!
