Undefeated Ice Miners skate away with a 13-0 win

Park City Ice Miners Red Team hockey home game against UCI-North on Wed. at the Ice Arena. Photo: courtesy of the Biglow familyily

PARK CITY, Utah — The Park City Ice Miners Red varsity boys hockey team had a resounding victory of 13 – 0 on Wednesday night at the Park City Ice Arena, beating the UCI-North team.

UCI-North, which traveled from Utah County, is comprised of athletes from Lehi, Alpine, and surrounding towns. The Ice Miners athletes are mostly students from the Park City High School.

On Monday, the Park City Red team, not to be confused with the White varsity team, traveled to Logan and returned home with a win against another geological-composite team from Sky Canyon, further improving Park City’s already sky-high rankings. Sky Canyon and Park City both competed at Nationals last year in Los Angeles. 

Monday’s game’s final score had Park City’s number of goals way up in the double digits as well. So far this season, Coach Mike Adamak has these Ice Miners undefeated at 4 – 0.

The Park City Ice Miners, which isn’t an officially sanctioned team via Utah high schools‘ sports, competed at nationals last year. However, a formidable opponent, Sky Canyon, an Independent team, or what’s known as a Unified team, won the 2024 Independent League high school-aged hockey national championships. 

PCHS senior Christopher Biglow plays defense on the team and has been playing hockey for 10 years. He told TownLift, “Park City is the best hockey organization, and getting to play with these teammates and for this coach is really fun.” Biglow went on to say, “Tonight’s game was great, we all played well, we were moving the puck together and as a result, had a bunch of good shots.”

Unlike most other sports, the American post-high school sports landscape is no more streamlined than the high schools or even academies, and the average freshman collegiate hockey player is 21 years old after fulfilling an unwritten expectation of a dynamic trajectory to play in the junior leagues for approximately two years.

Brockton Umstead, who scored one of Wednesday night’s goals, plays at center position and the PCHS senior has been playing for 13 years. He told TownLift, “Tonight’s game was great, it was good preparation for what might be some more challenging games coming up on our schedule.” He echoed his teammate’s praises for the coach, the players, and the administration, and enjoys the strong parents spectator support from all the families. One comment he wanted to share was less of a criticism and more of an actionable rallying call.  He told TownLift, “I think it would be cool if we had a bit more of a community crowd come out to be able watch one of the better Park City hockey teams play.”

Considering the complexities, these seniors have no dissolutions about playing elite hockey at a national level directly after graduation, but they simultaneously and rightfully don’t have any limitations on their goals and their dreams either. As such, they simply say that they’d love to continue to be involved in the sport they’re so passionate about for a long, long time, whatever that looks like.

Evan Snihurowych, a junior Miner, plays right wing on the team and is also looking ahead towards a fun and challenging season, laser focussed on qualifying to make it back to nationals again, months from now. He told TownLift, “This sport is super fun and this team is awesome, it’s a great group of guys and each of them is a leader in one way or another.”

With little concern for the distant future of their athletic careers, and not worried about the nearer future of the post season, the Park City team is living in the now, and now they are traveling to take on the team from Brighton as their next opponent.