A West Jordan native who is now goalie for the U.S. Women’s Development Sled Hockey Team returned from Norway a few weeks ago with the gold medal. Hope Bevilhymer was part of the team that clinched the title in the Women’s Para Ice Hockey World Cup with a 3-0 victory over Canada, the third straight title for the Americans.

Bevilhymer, who now lives and works in Las Vegas, considers West Jordan her hometown and comes back as often as she can. She felt “inspired to try sled hockey, and now it’s my passion.” A former roommate of hers, a recreational therapist, told her about the new sport that was coming called Sledge Hockey.

“She explained it to me and everything,” Bevilhymer said. “So I went and tried it, played forward for a while, and then the team put me into the net as goalkeeper. That’s the most important part of the team, in my opinion, and I’ve been there ever since.”

She started playing in a rec program through Salt Lake County in 1999 at age 21 and fell in love with the sport.

“It was a very aggressive sport, more aggressive,” she said. “So I went and trained. I got used to training with aggressiveness and playing hockey. And I don't know if you've ever seen it, but the sport is exactly like hockey. We just are in a sled. All the other rules are the same.”

Bevilhymer was born with bi-lateral clubfeet. The right foot was turned in and upside down. The doctors started stretching her foot at the age of 2 weeks old, followed by weekly castings. Her first surgery was at the age of 3 months. She continued with over 20 surgeries, stretching, casting, braces, gangrene, pain management, etc. 

At the age of 18, Bevilhymer had a leg lengthening procedure, called Ilizarov. This included metal rods through her bones which, over a two year period of time, lengthened her leg 2 ½ inches. The pain in her leg continued, despite all of the doctor’s treatments, and all other options. In June 2002, Hope had her 30th surgery, to amputate her leg below the knee.

That sparked an ambition in her. After watching a documentary on landmine victims and the need for helping people with similar disabilities in developing countries, she founded the Limbs of Hope Foundation in 2003 to collect prosthetics in the United States and ship them to other countries. A year later, Bevilhymer and two companions delivered the first 55 prosthetics in Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh. She continued that work for several years.

In 2005, she was the youngest recipient of the Volvo for Life Award–actually winning two awards for Quality of Life and Americas’ Greatest Hometown Hero. That same year, she was the youngest recipient of the “Days of ‘47” Pioneer in Progress in Education, Health and Humanitarian Award.

One achievement in the sport that Bevilhymer wants to see is the inclusion of Women’s Para Hockey in a future Olympics.

“So right now, the women are not in the Paralympics,” she said. “The men have been in the Paralympics, but we have not. You have to have eight governing bodies, like eight governing countries, and right now there's five.”

Those countries include Canada, Great Britain, Team Europe (Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden), Team Pacific from a variety of countries such as Australia, and Team Russia.  

“So some of my teammates and my assistant coach separate from USA Hockey started a foundation that's called the Women's Para Hockey Foundation, and they're raising funds to be able to send equipment to these different countries. We’re missing European countries like the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and countries like that. Our goal is that by next year of this time when we do another World Cup, we’ll have more teams on board.”

And she is very hopeful that the sport will be in place by the time the 2034 Paralympic Games are held here in Utah.

 “I would love to see that happen, and play here in Utah,” she said. “That would be like an epic story. I'll be like 56 years old, and I'm going till the end, until they kick me off the team!” λ