Hope Inc. Hurricanes Sled Hockey Team Crowned National Champions

This is the first time the Hurricanes have competed in Division-A in the programs' ten-year history

FARGO, N.D. — The Hope Inc. Hurricanes sled hockey team returned home from the national tournament yesterday, and they came back as champions.

“You always want to go out with a bang when you’re leaving something and I was just like, you know it probably won’t happen but let’s hope for the best,” Brynn Duncan, the Hurricanes defenseman.”Then all of a sudden we scored and I’m like ‘Okay, let’s go. Let’s do this!’ From there the whole demeanor of the game changed to ‘we might actually win this game.'”

But for Hope Inc., a squad competing in the most elite division, against the toughest of opponents en route to a national championship, they had never predicted a title was possible.

“Our community has about 250,000 people in it. The teams we played from Michigan, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Philadelphia they have anywhere between 5 and 7 million people, so they’ve got a lot more children with mobility challenges they can pool from,” Hope. Inc Co-founder Adair Grommesh said. “It’s a David and Goliath for us to be able to beat 5 different teams and win the whole thing”

But that’s exactly what the Hurricanes did. They topped the 2–time defending champs as well as three of the top five teams in the country to take home first place. The real reward, though, was proving they could compete with the best-of-the-best.

“If we lost it wouldn’t have mattered because we got there, we proved we belonged there,” Grommesh said. “People questioned if we should go up to that division. Win or lose that last game it was a statement. I have goosebumps just now because it was magical.”

This is the first time the Hurricanes have competed in Division-A in the programs’ ten-year history.