Evan Nichols and Noah Grove will return to Team USA paralympic team later this year.
WASHINGTON — Another Olympic year is finally here and this time Olympians and Paralympians will take center stage in Milano Cortina. Two DMV natives will be representing Team USA’s Sled Hockey team in the Paralympics on March 6 to March 15.
Forward, Evan Nicholas is from Haymarket, Virginia and graduated from Battlefield High School. He was born with Arthrogryposis which is a condition that affected his knees and joints. Then, at the age of five, he was diagnosed with Bilateral Perthes which affected both of his hips. It was a childhood friend, Alex Green, that suggested Nicholas should join a sled hockey team that was based in D.C.
However, the rink closed down during the pandemic and his parents drove him fours to play for the Pittsburgh Mighty Penguins out of Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.
Nicholas made his national team debut in 2022 at the age of 17, making him the youngest player on a gold medal-winning team. The U.S. sled hockey team won gold at the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing 2022.
Nicholas’ teammate on the other side of the puck, Noah Grove is representing Team USA for the third time in his paralympic career. He’s hails from Frederick, Maryland where April 3 is Noah Grove Day.
Grove lost his left leg to cancer shortly after his fourth birthday in June 2004. Growing up, Grove participated in the Amputee World Cup of Soccer in 2014 with the U.S. National Amputee Soccer Team. He was introduced to sled hockey at the Kennedy Kreiger Institute.
He was invited to train with the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team following his graduation from Urbana High School in May 2017. He had already committed to study at the University of New Hampshire, majoring in biomedical science, with the plan to become an orthopedic oncologist. However, the next year, Grove competed in the 2018 Paralympics trials, and won, to earn a spot on the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team as its youngest team member at the time.
Grove won gold medals in 2022 and 2018 and is a four-time world championship.
Team USA has claimed five Paralympic Winter Games gold medals (2022, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2002) and six International Paralympic Committee Sled Hockey World Championship gold medals (2023, 2021, 2019, 2015, 2012, 2009).