In his bio on the Utah High School Hockey website, Mike Masquelier proclaims “Life is good.”
With his team currently sitting at 4-6 with the end of the regular season approaching, one could look at Masquelier’s bio with an eyebrow raised. But with 17 freshmen players on a 26-player roster, the Park City Miners head hockey coach is excited about the future of this team the present, too.
After a 0-3 start to the season, the Miners look to be turning the corner at the right time. Despite a loss to the league’s best team, Bingham High School, Park City is beginning to find its identity as a team, according to Masquelier.
“We’ve pulled it together,” Masquelier said of his team’s recent stretch.
He said the Miners have already faced several of the top five teams in the league and knows his young team has found a way to compete. Carrying so many freshmen, the Miners are predictably a bit undersized, but they’re working on finding positives in that.
It’s speed.
“We’ve been emphasizing that,” he said. “How to use your speed as an advantage.”
The team has three seniors and two “really impact”juniors as Masquelier put it. But the team’s top four scorers and point leaders are freshmen, playing both varsity and junior varsity. Freshmen Noah Pranschke leads the team in points (10) with seven goals and three assists on the season, while fellow freshmen August Masquelier is right behind with nine points (seven goals, two assists).
“Give it two years and it’ll be quite an incredible team,” he said. “That to me is the most exciting thing.”
Park City, currently tied for eighth place in a division of 13 teams, has two more regular-season games left before the playoffs begin Feb. 7.
“I think we’ve done better (with the) win-loss record than I anticipated,” Masquelier said. “We’re at a good point in the season to carry that momentum forward.”
Admittedly, coaching such a young team is tough and Masquelier and his staff, along with the handful of upperclassmen, have endured some growing pains. But that, he said, will only make the team more of a threat later on.
“The biggest difficult thing is the huge variation in the skill and experience level,” he said. “There were probably six or seven kids at the beginning of the year that could barely skate. Trying to coach and develop those players alongside the more-experienced players is tough.”
Senior forward Laura Kubicki, the lone female on the team, and junior Ethan McIntire have been called upon to help the team maintain its turnaround. Kubicki was named to the Southern Divisional All-Star team this year, Park City’s lone representative.
“They’re the ones that kind of set the tones,” said Masquelier.
Asked to sum up the season thus far, Park City’s head coach said, “It’s pretty darn good. I’m extremely happy about it.”
Masquelier said he’s never dealt with a team so young and inexperienced, but is keeping an eye on the present and the future.