Nearly 500 youth soccer teams will be in town this Thursday through Saturday to be a part of an annual soccer tournament.
This Thursday through Saturday The Wasatch Back will be host to the 16th annual Park City Extreme Cup Soccer Tournament.
The youth tournament is for players ages 8-18 and hosted by the Park City Soccer Club.
Executive Director Shelly Gillwald explains Park City Soccer Club shares tournament hosting responsibilities with clubs throughout the Wasatch back.
“In order to hold a tournament of this size we actually partner with the Heber Valley Soccer Club and the South Summit Soccer Club out in Oakley,” Gillwald continued. “We hold the tournament on 44 fields at 16 venues. Those are out in the Basin, Ecker Hill, Willow Creek, Trailside. Then in town along Kerns, the high school, Treasure, North 40 and the Park City Sports Complex. As well as out of the rodeo grounds in Oakley South Summit High School and then we're at four venues over in Heber.”
The tournament will host 466 teams throughout the intermountain west including teams from California, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Nevada. It takes about 4,000 volunteer hours to put on the tournament. Gillwald says they get volunteers from soccer club participants and their parents. As well as other local youth groups, such as Park City Ski & Snowboard and local high school teams.
“They’ll come and volunteer and then in their name, we will pay a fee back to their organizations,” Gillwald explained. We have volunteers that will use it to pay their program fees. In another instance, three years ago maybe, Park City girls high school tennis team wanted to purchase new uniforms. So, they came and volunteered as a group and the funds we paid back to them enabled them to buy uniforms. So, that's one of the things I'm pretty proud about of this tournament. Not only does it benefit our local soccer community, but there's an opportunity for other youth-based programs to benefit from this big tournament as well.”
Gillwald says with so many venues, the tournament doesn’t have a huge impact on traffic, but it is something to be aware of. She says the more local support at the tournament the better.
“Ultimately, the tournament allows us to award over $70,000 in scholarships to local kids,” Gillwald said. “That's the purpose of our tournament is to raise funds to support this very large scholarship program.”
You can find out more about the extreme cup soccer tournament here.
