She is a motivational speaker, an amputee, athlete, humanitarian, and goalie for the gold medal winning U.S.A. Para Ice Hockey team.

On this episode of the Supercast, we meet West Jordan High School graduate Hope Bevilhymer. We hear Hope’s inspirational story of tragic challenges in life to hard-earned triumphs. And, you’ll find out what happens when we hit the ice with this elite athlete.

Audio Transcription

Hope Bevelheimer:
I play para, I talk to you about …. we’re in a sled.

Anthony Godfrey:
No one has beaten you at net in international competition.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Correct. I'm a three-time world gold medalist. Living, breathing, sweating hockey from all year. Amputation wasn't the end for me, it was just the beginning. But it could have been the end for me if I chose to have a PDN.

[MUSIC]

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. She is a motivational speaker, an amputee, an athlete, a humanitarian, and a goalie for the gold medal-winning USA para ice hockey team. On this episode of the Supercast, we meet West Jordan High School graduate Hope Bevelheimer. We hear Hope's inspirational story of tragic challenges in life, leading her to hard-earned triumphs. And you'll find out what happens when we hit the ice with this elite athlete.

[MUSIC]

Anthony Godfrey:
We're here at the Accord Ice Center to talk with Hope and Austin about hockey. Introduce yourselves a little bit and let's get into it.

Hope Bevelheimer:
My name is Hope Bevelheimer. I played for the para ice hockey women's team. So I play in a sled and I'm a three-time world gold medalist.

Austin Facer:
I'm Austin Facer. I've never won a gold medal in anything. I do a podcast called SLC Puck and just a local hockey content creator doing all kinds of goofy stuff with hockey here in Utah.

Anthony Godfrey.
Hope, how did you get started in hockey?

Hope Bevelheimer:
It was prior, I'm an amputee, it was prior to my amputation. I was born with club feet so I had more braces. I couldn't walk much. It was a lot of pain and stuff like that. And so my roommate at the time, she was a recreational therapist actually for the Salt Lake County. And so she had an adaptive program that they were starting and piloting back in 1999 and wanted to see if I wanted to participate. So I got in a sled of September 1999.

Anthony Godfrey:
Playing hockey since the 1900s.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Yes. For us, older generation, yes, the 1900s.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's right. And you went to West Jordan High School.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
Talk to me about your time at West Jordan High.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Well, I was a little different student. I had 29 surgeries before I had amputated. So all my high school, junior high and school years were spent in and out of the hospital. And so I had a lot of support from the school teachers and things like that. They would show up at my house on a Monday. I wasn't homeschooled. I called it hospital schooled. They would show up at my school/house on Monday, give me a load of the work, teach me if they needed to teach me, and then come back on Friday, pick up all the work, and then give me tests and all that stuff. And then when I was in school, very supportive. I had to be in a wheelchair sometimes. I know-- I don't know if West Jordan still has it, but there was an elevator. So I had a key to the elevator, like all sorts of things.

Anthony Godfrey:
There is an elevator, yes.

Hope Bevelheimer:
So I was an elevator rider, all those things, but they made accommodations for me. And it was difficult because we didn't have Google. We didn't have all that stuff back when I was going into school. I graduated in '95, so none of this technology we had then. It was just more difficult to try to learn on your own. Because I had support from the teachers, but I was mostly in the hospital most of the time.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about World Cup competition. You're a three-time gold medalist. Just in November, you beat Canada in Norway.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's really exciting. Talk to me about that trajectory.

Hope Bevelheimer:
We have, I've played international competition for a decade. USA Hockey took us over in 2019, so we were privately, they were trying to get this going back when I started. But 2019, USA Hockey took us over, and then that's when we started doing bigger international competition. Then COVID took over. And then we got put on hold for a little bit, but I went to Czech Republic, I've been to Norway twice, I've been to all the places in Canada, but I have not lost an international competition. When I've been in net, nobody has won against me.

Anthony Godfrey:
No one has beaten you at net in international competition.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Correct. I have beat all international competitions for a decade.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's amazing.

Hope Bevelheimer:
So that is a feat that I'm very excited about.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, that is impressive. So you started in 2019, and then everything was put on ice during COVID, or off ice during COVID, and then back on ice after COVID.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
Never defeated. That's incredible.

Hope Bevelheimer:
The last one we just played, we went to Canada to do a border battle. We call it the border battle, it's just us and Canada. We just go head-to-head, play a three-series. It was a close game, it was four to three. So yeah, I let three goals in, but they still didn't beat me.

Anthony Godfrey:
Are Canadians polite even in hockey?

Hope Bevelheimer:
No, they don't like us.

Anthony Godfrey:
They don't think so. And they definitely don't like losing.

Hope Bevelheimer:
No, and then I like chirping in their head, so that makes it worse for them.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, it's the trash talk. Is there a hockey trash talk?

Hope Bevelheimer:
There is plenty of trash talk.

Austin Facer:
Chirp is the term for trash talk in hockey. It's a big part of the game. A good chirp, yeah.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Because as a goalie, your skill is about 15%, your body is another percent, but it's a lot of mental. You have to be in your game when you're in goal. You have to have your head space on. If you don't, it's going to be a mess. So I like to get into other people's head space, so they have a messy game.

Anthony Godfrey:
Austin, tell me about how you got started in hockey.

Austin Facer:
Yeah, when I was younger, I was really into hockey movies, and The Mighty Ducks was a favorite of mine. I talk about that quite frequently on my podcast. I could probably recite the whole movie line by line. Around that same time, being like eight or nine, the Olympics were here, and there was a bigger conversation about hockey. I remember I just would beg my mom to take me to public skate at the old Bountiful Bubble Rec Center, which no longer exists. But that turned into playing and then playing all throughout high school. Kind of got out of the hockey scene for a little bit, just as an adult, just working in sports and different kinds of jobs. Kraig Williams, who is actually on your team at the Jordan School District, was a boss of mine at the Salt Lake Bees. So did a lot of sports-related jobs there. And then when the hockey club came to town, I just kind of put everything together with my sports background and love of hockey as a kid and built SLC Puck, which is a podcast that I do twice a week now.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's fantastic. And where can people find that?

Austin Facer:
You can find it way too easily. That's kind of the goal. It's on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. I have all the social media handles too at SLC Puck. So I try to put stuff out and bother people on their phones as much as possible.

Anthony Godfrey:
Perfect.

Austin Facer:
Yeah, I'm easy to find.

Anthony Godfrey:
I see that USA on your shirt stands for unity, sacrifice, and attitude. Talk to me about that.

Hope Bevelheimer:
It is that. You have to have a close-knit team. You have to sacrifice many sacrifices. For a decade for playing, I was telling my friends and stuff like that, I haven't had a real vacation because all my vacation hours go to USA Hockey because I have a regular job. So you have to dedicate. It's off-ice training. It's on-ice training. I’m living breathing sweating hockey all year. They're like, "When's your season off?" I'm like, "It's not off." On the off-season, we have to still condition and do all the things.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me what has been the greatest positive impact that hockey's had in your life.

Hope Bevelheimer:
Oh, it has saved my life many a time. It just has given me... It's given me hope. It's given me things to look forward to. I never thought I would be starting back in '99. Did I ever think I would be at this level of competition? No, it never crossed my mind. But the ability to just be able to participate in something that's a team effort and a group effort and you're all friends and off-ice, on-ice, all those things, the closer the team is, the better it turns out.

Anthony Godfrey:
How about for you?

Austin Facer:
I think there's just so many great life lessons that can be learned with hockey. Probably just all sports in general, but I think hockey really amplifies these attributes you need to be a successful adult. You can lea...