Team USA head coach David Hoff (left), goaltending coach Eric Woodbeck (center) and assistant coach Corey Gorder (right) coached the sled hockey team to a gold medal at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Paralympics in March. Hoff, Woodbeck and Gorder are all Minot State alums. USA Hockey

As the head coach of the Team USA sled hockey team, David Hoff and the rest of his staff didn’t receive individual goal medals following their 6-2 victory over Team Canada in the gold medal game at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Paralympics.

Only the athletes get to bask in that moment of having the gold medal placed over their necks during the medal ceremony.

But Hoff didn’t need a physical gold medal to serve as a reminder of all the hard work and sacrifices he and his entire coaching staff and players have put in to once again reach the mountaintop. His gold-medal moment came just before the final horn sounded and just before Team USA had become the first Olympic or Paralympic hockey team to win five consecutive gold medals.

“I remember the clock was at 30 seconds and I looked to my right and Declan (Farmer) was on the bench and he had his helmet off as all the other guys did,” Hoff said. “They were getting ready for the doors to open and celebrate and to see him have tears streaking down his cheeks, it was the biggest happy cry I’ve ever seen in my life. You could just tell he put four years into that moment of trying to get there and to know I was a part of helping him get there – I wasn’t the reason for him getting there, but I was part of it and it was just so satisfying. That was my gold-medal moment. While I’d love to have a physical picture of that, I think that picture in my mind of those tears running down his cheeks will be there forever. For me, that was better than any gold medal I’d ever get.”

With more than 30 years of experience coaching hockey at the high school and college levels and with Team USA, Hoff has forgotten more hockey experiences than most will ever have the chance to experience, but that moment on the bench in the final moments of the gold medal game is one he’ll never forget. He also won’t forget the journeys that led to three guys from small towns in North Dakota coming together and etching themselves into Olympic history.

Born and raised in a small town

If there are three things Hoff knows more about than most people, it’s Bottineau, hockey and time spent on a bus. Hoff was born and raised in Bottineau – a city of slightly more than 2,000 people located just 15 miles from the Canadian border. He attended school at Bottineau High, where he played hockey. Hoff went on to play two years at NDSU-Bottineau (now Dakota College at Bottineau) and spent a year there coaching as an assistant.

From 1989-2019, Hoff served as the head coach of the boys hockey program as well as the track and field team at Bottineau High School. He was also the school’s athletic director. In the ’90s, Hoff coached a teenager at the time named Corey Gorder. Little did either of them know that 30 years later they would be coaching together and winning gold medals in China and Italy.

It was around the same time as Hoff and Gorder were first introduced to one another that Hoff began working with USA Hockey. He got a call from North Dakota Amateur Hockey, which had just joined USA Hockey, but they were required to have an instructor on staff that could provide education classes for youth coaches. With a Master of Arts degree in mathematics education, Hoff fit the bill. He therefore put on coaching education classes all across North Dakota into the early ’00s.

In 2010, he was introduced to the world of sled hockey when he received an email from Team USA offering Hoff the opportunity to work at the sled team’s development camp that summer. Sixty players are invited to the camp and it’s overseen by four coaches. Hoff was hooked and successfully attempted to get invited back each year.

“I did that and had so much fun,” Hoff said. “It was my first exposure to sled hockey, but I had so much fun I just tried to get hired back and each year I did and that was really my introduction to sled hockey.”

That same year, Hoff was named the Northern Plains District Coach-in-Chief for USA Hockey’s coaching education program. He served that role for four years. One of the instructors Hoff met while working the summer development camps was Team USA sled hockey coach Jeff Sauer. Sauer ran the camp, with Hoff working as an assistant. Sauer spent 20 years coaching at the University of Wisconsin, winning nearly 500 games as well as the national championship in 1990.

Sauer had been serving as the sled hockey head coach since 2011 and asked Hoff in 2016 if he wanted to join his staff as an assistant coach. Hoff jumped at the opportunity. Tragically, Sauer passed away not too long after, losing his battle with pancreatic cancer in February 2017. Guy Gosselin took over through the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, where Hoff won his first gold medal. Gosselin played Division I hockey at the University of Minnesota Duluth from 1982-87 and played for Team USA in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. The defenseman was drafted in the eighth round by the Winnipeg Jets in 1982.

The entire experience was surreal for Hoff. After three decades of riding in a bus across North Dakota more times than he could count, Hoff was on a flight to South Korea to coach in the Paralympics.

“There’s probably no one in the history of hockey that put in more bus miles than me because for 30 years I rode in a bus to a lot of games in a lot of different locations,” Hoff said. “If you had told me at that time that I would eventually be flying to Beijing or Pyeongchang or Milan, I guess I probably never saw it. Maybe because of those thousands and thousands of miles on a bus, there’s no one more appreciative of the opportunity than I am.”

Hoff thought his time with Team USA was done following the 2018 Games as the man who had hired him had passed away and Hoff believed a coaching shakeup was imminent. But USA Hockey had different plans. They wanted Hoff to be the new head coach. Hoff was caught a bit off guard by the offer, as he wasn’t privy to any knowledge of the head coaching search. After taking some time to mull it over, Hoff agreed, and accepted the position he still currently holds eight years later.

The first thing on his agenda as head coach was building out his staff. He didn’t want someone overly agreeable, but rather someone he could bounce ideas back and forth with and provide a different point of view. Hoff knew the man for the job: one of his former players from the ’90s.

Not a yes man

Corey Gorder knew Hoff as his coach for the first few years of their relationship. For more than a decade, they have served as co-workers. It began when their paths crossed once again at USA Hockey’s coaching education clinics. With a Master’s of Science in clinical psychology, Gorder was brought in to talk about the mental health side of the game. When there was an instructor spot open at the team’s development camp, Hoff invited Gorder.

Gorder worked at the development camp for a number of years and decided to stick around after the 2018 Paralympics. He helped out at the team tryouts in 2018 after Hoff had been named the head coach. That’s where Hoff asked Gorder if he would be interested in joining his staff as an assistant coach.

When Gorder agreed, Hoff ran it through the chain of command and the Team USA General Manager reached out soon after to formally offer him the position. Gorder was the exact coaching personality Hoff was looking for.

“He’s not a yes man and I thought if we were going to be able to do the job that we want to do in that position, I didn’t want a bunch of guys in the locker room that just when I said something, they would say, ‘Yeah, let’s do that. Yeah, let’s do that.’ When it comes to being the best, you have to be willing to hear different points of view and Corey is not afraid to share what he thinks and that’s been so valuable to our coaching room,” Hoff said.

Gorder brought plenty of coaching experience to team USA and he has seen over the years what has worked and what hasn’t. When Hoff hired Gorder onto his staff, he wanted Gorder to not be afraid to voice his opinion, especially when it conflicted with Hoff’s. In Hoff’s mind, if Gorder was just going to agree with everything he said and did, there would be no point in having him around.

“We have the same goal in mind but we get there in different ways,” Gorder said. “We think different and talk different. He said to me one time and I use it all that time that if I thought like he did, he wouldn’t need me and it’s an interesting concept. Sometimes people like others who think like they do, but you need someone who thinks different and challenges them and he knows I’m not afraid to stand up for most things. He and I have a really good relationship and are able to do that and it’s not personal if we disagree.”

Most of Gorder’s coaching experience prior to joining USA Hockey was at the youth level. Gorder was hired by Dakota College at Bottineau as a mental health counselor, where he also served as an assistant coach for the men’s hockey team and was the athletic director in 2020. The Lumberjacks won the 2016 and 2017 NJCAA National Championship.

For the past two years, Gorder has served as the college’s associate dean of student services before being named interim dean on July 1, 2025. He officially became the school’s dean in February of this year, mere days before flying to Italy for the 2026 Paralympics.

Proving the naysayers wrong

When Hoff was tabbed as the next head coach of Team USA in 2018, he knew it wasn’t a popular pick outside of the building. Hoff knew the fanbase wanted a splashy name, and he didn’t fit that bill. Hoff didn’t have the gaudy resume of being a championship-winning Division I coach or someone who had a Stanley Cup to his name. Replacing a coaching legend in Sauer only fanned those flames.

Hoff wasn’t perusing social media or online hockey forums to discover he wasn’t the fanbase’s first, second or even 100th choice, but word got back to him. But he didn’t care. What was most important to him was that he had the backing of Team USA, both management and the players.

“I didn’t think it, I knew it,” Hoff said. “You look at sports and when you get to higher levels, it’s about people and their resumes and a lot of people get infatuated with people who have done things at a high level and I wasn’t that guy. It made its way back to me – the comments did. But there were a couple people in USA Hockey that were very influential and they thought I’d be the right person. I’m grateful for them to this day. They went to bat for me and were really adamant that I’d be given a chance. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance because I wasn’t coming from a college position. I wasn’t a former Olympian or former Division I college hockey player. I was a high school coach and a high school teacher, and someone thought I’d be the right fit.”

Hoff carried a bit of a chip on his shoulder for years, constantly looking to silence all the doubters. To quiet those critics, he did the only thing he could do: win.

Hoff won. A lot. He won gold at the World Para Ice Hockey Championships – the world championships for sled hockey – in 2019, 2021 and 2023 and again in 2025. He’s won all five Para Hockey Cup tournaments since becoming head coach. The Para Hockey Cup takes place every non-Paralympic year and features four of the top sled teams to compete in an invitation-only tournament. Hoff is 22-1-0-2 at the World Para Ice Hockey Championships and 24-1-0-0 at the Para Hockey Cup. He went 10-1-0-1 in his first year at the helm.

But it was following the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing, China, where Hoff said he felt like he could finally feel the pressure lift. Hoff guided Team USA to their fourth consecutive gold medal and fifth overall alongside Gorder for the first time. Team USA went undefeated in four games, defeating Canada and South Korea in the preliminary round before knocking off China in the semifinals and Canada in the gold medal game. Team USA outscored their opponents 30-1, shutting out Canada twice.

“We’ve had a lot of success,” Hoff said. “For a lot of people, success is winning. We’ve won a lot over the last eight years, there’s no doubt about that. I don’t think I really ever allowed myself to relax. I always felt like I had to prove something. If this doesn’t work out, am I going to be here at the end of this season? I think it took those first 3-4 years. After Beijing, I felt very comfortable.”

Hoff was named the Paralympic Coach of the Year in 2022 by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

While winning the gold medal in Beijing allowed him to take a deep breath for what felt like the first time, it had to be made into a KN95 mask, as the 2022 Paralympics was unforgettable in more than one way for him and Gorder. The world was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic during the Paralympics that year, and there had been talk of cancelling the games altogether for more than a year. While other countries were beginning to loosen their COVID restrictions, China was one that still operated under strict limitations.

Gorder recalled a time where he was sitting on a park bench on a nice day and Facetiming his family back home. As he was on the phone, he was approached and told to put his mask on. When they weren’t participating in games or practices, players and coaches weren’t allowed to leave the Olympic Village.

The atmosphere had an eerie feel to it, as Team USA played in empty arenas, with the sound of the sticks hitting the puck being the only sound that echoed through the stadium. Four years later in Italy, Team USA would be playing in front of record-breaking sold-out crowds, but before then, Team USA needed a goaltending coach, and Hoff again looked to his home state of North Dakota for the answer.

“51 in 30” to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

Eric Woodbeck grew up in a hockey town, played for a high school hockey power and would eventually go on to coach the sport once he moved to the Minot area. But up until 2018, he had never experienced sled hockey.

That changed when Team USA came to Minot for a development camp, one of Hoff’s first since taking over as the head coach. Hoff invited him out to the camp to work with the goalies. Woodbeck could only help out the first day, as he was scheduled to conduct a coaching clinic for USA Hockey in Bismarck the following day.

It may have just been a day, but that was all Woodbeck needed to see to convince him that working with the sled hockey team was something he wanted to pursue.

“Ever since that experience, I just remember telling my wife that that is something that I want to be a part of,” Woodbeck said. “That group is a special group and something I always strived to be a part of after that.”

Like both Hoff and Gorder, Woodbeck got his foot in the door with USA Hockey in 2016 by instructing coaching education classes at the district and state camps, where he and Gorder first met. That year, Minot High went to a USA Hockey event in Grand Forks in conjunction with the Under-18 World Championships. At the same time, USA Hockey had just rolled out its “51 in 30” initiative, where the goal is to have 51 percent of the minutes played in the NHL and NWHL (National Women’s Hockey League) by 2030. Woodbeck got involved in the initiative and has been an instructor for USA Hockey’s goaltending coaching development clinics while continuing to oversee Northern Plains District developments camps as the goaltending Coach-in-Chief.

Woodbeck’s coaching career didn’t start in hockey, but rather football. After playing goalie for Grand Forks Central, Woodbeck played football for a few years in college. He began his 20-year coaching career in 1997 beginning with his alma mater. He spent 11 years at Glenburn and four more at Jim Hill Middle School before returning to hockey in 2011, serving as an assistant coach and goaltending coach for Minot High. He currently coaches with the Minot United JV team. He and Hoff spent years on opposite benches whenever Minot High would play Bottineau-Rugby.

Woodbeck and Hoff went from being on opposite benches to sharing the same one in November of 2024 when Woodbeck received a phone call from Team USA’s Manager of Player Development Steve Thompson the Monday before Thanksgiving, informing him that he was going to be named the sled hockey team’s new goaltender coach.

With their new goaltending coach secured, Team USA – consisting of players from Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, California, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and Massachusetts – was now being led by three North Dakota natives.

Woodbeck continued Team USA’s winning ways from the start. He made his debut at the 2025 Reeve Hockey Classic in Saugus, Mass, in February in conjunction with the 4 Nations Face-Off. Team USA skated to a pair of victories over Canada. Four months later, Team USA captured gold at the World Para Ice Hockey Championships in Buffalo, N.Y., beating Canada, 6-1. Team USA surrendered just five goals in five contests to win their seventh gold medal in 12 appearances.

“Eric has been just a really nice fit,” Hoff said. “He has such a great demeanor with our goaltenders and our goaltenders appreciate the fact that they can visit with him and that was an area we thought we could do better in and Eric has been the right guy.”

History etched in gold

Woodbeck got his first taste of gold-medal victory at the World Para Ice Hockey Championships and was seeking another on the biggest stage in Italy at the 2026 Paralympic Games. He got quite the sendoff from his supporters, as the entire student body and teaching staff at Minot North lined the hallway to cheer on their mathematics teacher as he embarked for Milan.

The support Woodbeck, Hoff and Gorder have received over the years since joining USA Hockey has been overwhelming for the coaching trio, as it is a constant juggling act to balance their duties with the sled team along with their everyday jobs and family life. Hoff and Woodbeck are math teachers at Rolette and Minot North, respectively, while Gorder is the dean at DCB. All three are married with children.

They have missed work and family functions at times, as they are in a different state each month of the year for training. Team USA doesn’t have a dedicated training camp location and instead have practice facilities across the country they utilize. They all fly in from out of town for a week and stay at a hotel together. They’ll practice twice a day for five or six days, whether it’s in Denver, Colo., Madison, Wisc., or Nashville, Tenn., to name a few, before heading home. The support and understanding from family and employers hasn’t gone unappreciated.

“I have a really great support system at home,” Woodbeck said. “My wife is amazing. She has been my No. 1 supporter ever since I started doing this stuff, whether it was coaching in football or in hockey and all the stuff I do now for USA hockey, she is my No. 1 fan as I am of her. We support each other. Our kids have supported everything I’ve done. They are so proud of me and our players and what we’ve accomplished. That makes it easier that way and school has been pretty good about me having extra time to make sure I’m able to be at those things. There are tournaments I don’t go to on purpose because missing so much school is hard. My students know what I’m doing and they are proud of me and the send-off I had before, every kid in the school that was there that day and all the teachers were down the hallway cheering me on as I was walking out. It was pretty emotional for me and pretty special.”

While Woodbeck’s family remained in North Dakota and watched on television, Hoff’s wife and step son, and Gorder’s wife and two kids were in attendance for the semifinals and gold medal game.

While Hoff said he and his team weren’t focused on any external pressures, the sled team was chasing history in a multitude of ways. The United States was still buzzing after both the men’s and women’s hockey teams won gold in overtime over Canada. It was the first time both the men’s and women’s programs have won gold at the same Olympics. The sled team had the chance to make it a clean sweep, something no other country has pulled off. The sled team was also seeking its fifth straight gold medal, which would break a tie with the Canadian men, the Canadian women and the Soviet Union. The Canadian men won the first four Olympic gold medals from 1920-32. The Canadian women won four straight between 2002-14 and the Soviet Union took home gold between 1964-1976.

“We never talked about the pressure of that, but we all thought it,” Gorder said. “There was that pressure of knowing we really have to get this done. So when you know you’re a country that’s the only country that’s done this, it’s very special.”

Team USA cruised through pool play, defeating Italy, Germany and China by a combined score of 34-2, outshooting them 125-12. They knocked off Czechia, 6-1, in the semifinals to set up a gold-medal showdown with Canada.

This was Hoff’s third gold medal game and Gorder’s second, but it was Woodbeck’s first, and the nerves were getting to him leading up to the game. Woodbeck said he was so nervous about the game that he wasn’t able to eat anything the day of the contest. But he had a sense of calm wash over him while sitting in the coaches’ room at the rink, where he could hear the players in the locker room laughing and having a good time. If they weren’t nervous, then neither should he.

It turned out that Woodbeck had nothing to worry about, as Team USA cruised to a 6-2 victory over Canada to complete the American sweep and give the sled team an historic fifth consecutive gold medal.

“The whole thing was such a whirlwind,” Woodbeck said. “We were over there for 2.5 weeks and it didn’t feel like we were there for hardly three days. We were on the go a lot doing things, whether it was practices or whatever else. It was such a humbling and surreal feeling, especially in that last game. I remember standing there and watching the medal stuff get all rolled out and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and looked up and was like, ‘When did all these people get here?’ It just didn’t dawn on me until that moment and realizing what we had just accomplished.”

Despite all the naysayers at the time of his hiring, Hoff became the first Team USA hockey coach to win two gold medals at the Olympics or Paralympics. And he did it in front of a record sold-out crowd of 11,500.

“It’s the best environment,” Hoff said. “The World Championship years, which are the other three years, are big years and obviously winning championships is really exciting, but all of the media attention and the platform that everything is on just gets raised up big time. It’s a chance for people around the world, especially in our country to see the sport because it’s on NBC. The opening crowd was just shy of 10,000 and the last crowd was pushing 12,000. It’s just such a cool environment. I grew up as a kid who just loves the Olympics, so this definitely fits me because I’m someone who’s always loved it.”

The three Team USA hockey teams now have a combined 12 gold medals – six for the sled team and three each for the men’s and women’s squads.

“To know you were a part of it was very, very special,” Gorder said. “I’m very privileged to be able to do that and I’m honored to be able to be a part of that. When you realize the first time, whether it’s a World Championship or a Paralympic gold medal, the realization of the history and when you know that your name is a part of that forever, it’s very special and it makes you really appreciate all the time and people around you, not only players and staff, but players’ families and all those things, it really makes you look around at all the people that care enough to put time in.”

The Minot State Connection

Minot State might want to consider adding gold as an official third school color alongside the green and red. Not only are Hoff, Gorder and Woodbeck gold-medal winners and North Dakota natives, but they are also MSU alums.

Hoff graduated in Winter 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts in secondary mathematics education and returned for his Masters of Arts in mathematics education and secondary mathematics, graduating in 1999.

Gorder was in the Class of 2001, earning his Bachelor of Science in criminal justice and sociology. Gorder is a licensed professional clinical counselor in North Dakota.

Woodbeck attended MSU for his master’s degree in mathematics and graduated in 2007. He attended Mayville State for his undergrad, graduating in 1998 with a B.A. in education with a concentration in mathematics. Hoff was one of his instructors at MSU, as the head coach taught a class about how to use math in real world situations. Woodbeck has been working at MSU as an adjunct professor for the past 10 years.

Hoff likes to joke with his fellow alums his time at MSU was so long ago compared to theirs, that hockey wasn’t even a thing on campus.

“Those two guys can say that there was hockey at Minot State when they were there,” Hoff said. “I guess I’m the old guy of the bunch and hockey wasn’t quite at Minot State at that point. But I think all of us have said that their time at Minot State was so important. I learned so much about building relationships when at Minot State even though I was there for a math degree. It was about making people feel valued for what they do and when you’re in the performance business, if someone feels valued in the locker room, it’s amazing what you can get them to do. But if they don’t know where they stand with a coach, it’s really hard to get them to give their best.”

Gorder is a proud American and honored for the opportunity to represent the Red, White and Blue wherever they might be competing. And he’s a proud North Dakotan that has shown the rest of the country and the world the fight that lives inside the heart of the Peace Garden State.

“The cool part is I’m looking at where we all went to school and knowing there is a connection now, but we’re all North Dakota guys, too,” Gorder said. “When you’re someone from around here, you’re very proud of where you’re from and you work hard to get things done and the three of us gel really well together.”