“I’ve been at home, training on my own,” he said about being quarantined during the Coronavirus pandemic. “I am trying to stay safe. Recently, though, things started to open back up so I started to use some facilities. Other than that, I am staying at home.”
At the 2018 Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Wallace won the gold medal in the para ice hockey team competition, as part of Team USA. “That was great,” he admitted.
They also won the gold medal at the 2019 World Para Ice Hockey Championships in Ostrava. “That felt pretty great. I can’t really complain about that. It was a great year for us,” he said.
Regarding his daily motivations, he said, “Hockey is what I love to do, it’s my passion. To be honest, I don’t really need to find any extra motivation on most days. I know that I want to keep doing it because it’s what I love.”
On being an ice sled hockey player in the digital age, he said, “We take videos of technique and to train, I have a major in biomedical engineering, so I have definitely done a good amount of research on that with biomechanics.”
For young and aspiring ice sled hockey players, he encouraged them to work hard. “My motto is ‘you get out what you put in.’ You can’t expect to be successful without putting the work in,” he said. “Your success is a derivative of the work that you put in.”
Aside from ice sled hockey, Wallace also enjoys doing sprint kayaking, and he hopes to compete in the Tokyo Summer Paralympics in that event. “It’s a very interesting challenge to try and train for two sports at the same time, and try to be at the top in both.”
He acknowledged that he has grown substantially over the past five years. “It has been an incredible journey. I am a much different person than when I was 17 years old when I initially made the team. My whole life has changed on a whole new path and I am very grateful for it,” he said.
On his plans for 2020 and beyond, Wallace said, “Right now, to hopefully get through this safe, and be as safe as possible. Once things subside, I would like to train full-time again and qualify for Tokyo, and still be at the top of my game for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing for hockey.”
Regarding the title of the current chapter of his life, he said, “Road to Tokyo, Eyes on Beijing.”
Wallace defined the word success as “the end goal of work.” “That’s really what it is,” he explained. “Success is how hard you work.”
“Stay home and stay safe. We will get through this,” he said, as his inspiring words to his fans and followers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For his fans and supporters, he said, “I am grateful for any level of support that anyone is willing to give me. I am extremely lucky, and I don’t necessarily think that I deserve to be where I am, but I am happy that I am. I am very grateful.”
To learn more about Paralympic gold medalist and ice sled hockey player Jack Wallace, follow him on Instagram and on Twitter.
