PARK CITY, Utah — The Park City Silver Queens is an adult team that has women of all different skill levels.
Some participants played in college, at programs as prestigious as Boston University and Boston College. Others just picked up the sport a couple of years ago.
"As adults, it's all self-propelled and so the fact that these women just are here and they want to get better and you see them like going to things even outside the team to like stick pucks and drop-ins, it's just so wonderful to see," defenseman Theresa Geist explained. "It's so amazing to see like how much we've grown as a team over the last couple of years."
"We all love hockey, and on the ice it's not too competitive in practice," defenseman Steph Murray added. "In the game, that's obviously different, but it's really an amazing blend of levels, people who do different things."
Growing up in Minnesota and playing intramurals at the University of North Dakota, head coach Brandon Geist has played hockey his whole life, and shared what it's like to coach women of all different levels.
"It's a unique challenge because I have to take drills that are one size fits all, and then I have to tailor them for each specific skill set," he said. "At the end of all our practices, we'll do a scrimmage, and we'll just intermix the squads. It's a lot of fun for the girls."
The women get to grow as players and as people — the group provides a fun space to spend time with each other, and most importantly to them, have fun.
"I was originally home with my kids and then I got to be here and be with a bunch of women who also, a lot of them had started because their kids had started playing, and they wanted to be able to keep up with their kids on the ice.," forward Ali Davis said. "So it was really amazing to see all these other moms that were playing hockey and putting themselves out there and trying something new."
"I think first and foremost, it's fun more than competitive because of all the varying levels" Murray said with a smile. "Also, none of us are going to be in the Olympics. None of us are college bound anymore, so it's primarily fun and a way to be together, um, in a completely different sort of way."
