Summit County resident Ben Arnold believes the nonprofit hockey club's records may show “potential private benefit or self-dealing issues” or IRS violations.
Park City Ice Miners has asked a court to dismiss the lawsuit Arnold first filed in October. The club says the suit seeks to “malign” the hockey club’s board of trustees and its president, Matt Prucka.
But after that initial request in 3rd District Court, Arnold doubled down in an amended complaint Dec. 12, claiming he and one of his kids have faced retaliation because of the concerns he’s raised.
“I'm being painted as this person that's trying to harm the organization, when in fact I'm actually trying to save it,” he told KPCW in an interview Dec. 29. “Because there is no record — we don't even know if it's solvent, given the potential liabilities that are not even recognized because of the way that they're doing cash basis accounting.”
PCIM hasn’t filed a response to the new allegations, and Prucka didn’t respond to KPCW’s requests for comment Dec. 26 and 29.
But the hockey club has characterized Arnold’s requests as a fishing expedition. Its earlier court papers state Arnold’s “vague allegations … obfuscate [his] true desire: a broad intrusion into Mr. Prucka’s personal bank accounts and finances.”
Arnold says Prucka used his personal accounts for PCIM business: specifically, his personal Venmo.
The hockey nonprofit says it serves more than 165 players.
Arnold accuses Prucka of using his personal Venmo to collect team dues and merchandise purchases, rather than software that would’ve deposited the money into PCIM’s Zions Bank account.
The latest complaint alleges more than $273,000 went through the @mprucka Venmo during the past two years but that the transactions weren’t properly noted on PCIM’s Form 990, the IRS document where nonprofits publicly disclose their finances.
The legal dispute isn’t whether those funds were properly used or accounted for so much as whether PCIM provided Arnold with all the accounting documents he’s legally entitled to review.
The hockey club says it has provided everything Arnold is allowed to have. Arnold is asking the court to force PCIM to fork over more.
“We already knew before we started this process, based off of the tax filings, what we are most likely going to find here,” Arnold told KPCW in an interview. “We keep peeling back every new document, more and more of the onion keeps getting peeled away, and you keep finding more and more things.”
His updated complaint states that the records the club has so far provided show “questionable” transactions.
Those include tuition to a private high school in Connecticut, payments to a Michigan Honda dealer and “a $16,718 payment to Diasti Stables, a private luxury equestrian horse farm in Florida.”
The lawsuit also says Prucka reimbursed himself for more than $611,000 for costs incurred on behalf of PCIM “over the past several years.”
Park City Ice Miners is registered as a 501(c)3 organization under the name Summit And Wasatch County Amateur Hockey Association. In 2024, it reported about $491,000 in revenue and $508,000 in expenses.
PCIM says it discontinued the use of Venmo in July 2025.
That was when Arnold said he began asking for more documents after hearing concerns from two board members and reviewing the publicly available 990.
In August, Arnold’s lawsuit claims his child was then blocked from playing for the A-level hockey team he had successfully tried out for months prior. Then it claims Arnold’s child was barred from playing for an older A team.
The hockey club has expelled the elder Arnold as a member but says that doesn’t affect whether his spouse or children can participate in the club. It does affect which financial documents he may be entitled to review.
The PCIM board’s attorneys state in a Dec. 12 expulsion letter, which was included in court papers, that “Mr. Arnold’s repeated claims of retaliation are unfounded and have no relevance to his expulsion.”
Instead, they said it was Arnold’s “repeated attempts to cause harm to PCIM through his various communications” that led to it.
Arnold is asking for a jury trial in 3rd District Court and for attorney’s fees and damages related to his expulsion. A trial date hasn’t been set.
He told KPCW that the Utah Division of Consumer Protection is investigating his allegations. KPCW’s public records request seeking to confirm an investigation has not yet been returned.
