This is the first season for the Park City Miners hockey team under head coach Mike Adamek. He has 15 years of coaching experience under his belt. Many of those were spent as assistant coach in Park City.
Adamek inherited a team that lost its star seniors, including TJ Griswold, Bryce Bargowski, and siblings Colton and Tiana McIntyre.
Many believed this was going to be a rebuilding year for the team. Adamek said the team has yet to find its scoring rhythm, only averaging two goals per game, However, on October 19th when the team played the Juan Diego Eagles at home, it showed it was still the same team Miners fans were accustomed to.
The Miners lit up the scoreboard. After giving up an early first period goal, they proceeded to score 10 unanswered goals over the first two periods. The Miners claimed a 12-2 win. The team was led by junior defenseman Garrett Hebert, who scored two goals and had one assist.
After the game, Hebert said he was happy with his scoring and how the team played.
“You know, it's good. It's a good way to start the season a little early in the season. It's nice to get the boys going early.”
Senior defenseman Cutler Schofield said having a lot of young skilled players is helpful since the team only has a few seniors.
“So we are really young, but we're really skilled. All of our guys are faster, and lot like better stick-handling skills than anybody else on the other teams. Right now. It's just if we get over the discipline and working together aspect of it.”
Adamek said another advantage the Miners have is all the players on the team come from one school.
“I think it gives our kids a little bit more of an advantage in the fact that they go to school together, they see each other in classes, they're hanging out. But also, it's you know, a pride thing too. There's pride in the hometown there's pride in your school, you know, they're playing in front of their, you know, students their friends here at the local rink.”
Many of the high school hockey teams in the state are independent teams. This means that a team is composed of players from schools in a select region of the state.
Schofield believes that this year isn’t going to be a rebuilding year - it’s going to be a regular year of evolving and growing.
“So I think it's just a, like, just waves crashing, it's every year we lose seniors, we gain young players, just like any other year.”
Adamek said that since the first practice of the season, the state championship has been on everyone's mind.
Hebert said that winning the fourth title would be an amazing feeling.
“This year I kind of feel as a leader almost. And I've never felt that in the past years. So this year for me would mean winning the state champ winning state title as a leader on the team.”
The Park City Miners have games throughout the year, including Wednesday, October 26 in Ogden against Weber County. View the team's full schedule here.