The Park City Extreme Cup took over 44 of the Wasatch Back’s soccer fields last week.
Thursday through Saturday, 463 teams across U3-U19 age groups came to the area for the 23rd annual competition. These teams faced off in 830 matches across the three days.
The cup serves as a six-figure fundraiser for the Park City Soccer Club’s scholarship fund. The club has over 600 players on 34 teams. Most of the club’s players are from Park City, with some also coming from other parts of the Wasatch Back and Salt Lake City.
The club sees this year’s cup as another successful event. They said they couldn’t have done it without the support of 269 referees, hundreds of volunteers, their staff, Park City and local vendors.
“The summer has been a wonderful celebration of soccer,” said Park City Soccer Club General Manager Anthony DiCicco. “To be able to do that locally as the world has just finished doing it globally is a tremendous testament to the power of the soccer community and the sport to bring people together.”
DiCicco said he’s proud that the cup helped bring people to the area in a year where Park City lost the Sundance Film Festival and there was a low snowfall season.
The club provided over 1,150 meals last week to referees, volunteers and their staff from restaurants like Vessel Kitchen, Hearth and Hill and Hill’s Kitchen.
“We are happy to support, promote and celebrate the local small businesses,” DiCicco said. “They are also tremendously critical in supporting us and the initiative. We run our event very differently than most tournaments are run, certainly in the state of Utah and and across the country. … Taking care of the people who are taking care of our athletes is really, really important.”
Some of DiCicco’s favorite moments from the cup were seeing his U9 players throw on their Park City jerseys for the first time, his older girls teams preparing for the recently begun high school season, and his U14 girls team managing the pressure of a game that went to penalty kicks.
“There’s just pure joy in that experience,” DiCicco said. “The smiles, laughs and drama of it. … Everywhere I look, I see the special qualities in our players and everybody involved that really make it a wonderful event.”
The club and cup director Cora Reddan, who will be in her 10th year running the event in 2027, will reflect on what made this year’s cup special and where to improve. The club was happy with its switch over to digital roster assembly this year.
“The reason the event is at the standard that it is is because Cora and her team are tireless in their process,” DiCicco said. “We extract the lessons, go again and try to get better. There are things that you want to continue doing that are clearly working and things that we want to continue to tweak and find ways to make sure that it is the premier soccer event in the Mountain West region.”