Hockey is a game only the tough should play.
Just ask Park City Pioneers captain David Imonti, who received a highstick to the face that required seven stitches in the first game of last weekend’s back-to-back matchup against the visiting Sun Valley Suns.
The Pioneers opened up Friday night at home at the Park City Ice Arena against one of the best teams in the region in the Suns. Two losses in Sun Valley in early December were still in the minds of the Pioneers as they made their statement, jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the second period en route to an eventual 6-4 win.
“It was a good, hard-fought game,” Imonti said. “Things kind of got a little chippy at the end, but it was a good to get that result against that team.”
Throughout the game Friday night, the tension was high and there were several fights, which led to eventual suspensions for Saturday night’s showdown.
Due in large part to a few key suspensions, Park City lost to the Suns 5-3 Saturday night.
Imonti knows hockey is a game of toughness and pride, but said he realizes sometimes it’s good to just walk away and be available for the next game.
“Our guys need to know when to be the bigger man sometimes,” he said. “But it’s unfortunate because guys don’t want to back down.”
He said that this year’s league rules pertaining to fighting are not as tolerant; fighting is “as accepted” as it was last season; if a player partakes in a fight, there’s an automatic ejection.
But the Pioneers showed Sun Valley that they are not to be taken lightly and, while Park City wished it could have swept the home-and-home, Imonti and his teammates were proud of the results.
“We’re really satisfied with how everything turned out,” he said. “This weekend we showed we’re good. We showed that everything’s worth it.”
According to Imonti, Friday night’s fisticuffs were a result of Sun Valley being underprepared for the Pioneers and may have taken the games a bit lightly.
“I think they were trying to maintain a little bit of a mental edge in hoping they could hopefully they get it together,” he said. “After you become familiar with one another as teams, you start to get a little more annoyed each time you play.”
Park City, now 4-5, prepares to play six of its last nine games of the regular season on its home ice, and will also be hosting a tournament of Utah hockey clubs in early April.
It will be a round-robin single-elimination tournament between the Pioneers and the rest of their in-state rivals.
“It should get pretty intense,” Imonti said.
Park City’s next home games will be Feb. 4-5 against the Aspen Leafs.