FILE – Delta Center is viewed before an NBA basketball game between the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls, Monday, March 17, 2025, in Salt Lake City.
FILE – Delta Center is viewed before an NBA basketball game between the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls, Monday, March 17, 2025, in Salt Lake City.
The owners of the NHL’s Utah Hockey Club and NBA’s Jazz are beginning a massive renovation of their downtown Salt Lake City Arena that will eventually increase hockey capacity to roughly 17,000 and basketball to nearly 19,000 fans.
Smith Entertainment Group announced its plan Wednesday after a meeting of the Salt Lake City Council earlier in the week.
Officials said the initial stage of renovations this summer should boost the number of full-ice view seats by 1,400: 1,000 new ones and upgrading 400 that had a sightline of just one end of the rink in the team’s first season in the city.
“Just in Year 1 (post-renovations) we’re going to see a great improvement for the lower-bowl capacity for hockey,” Jazz president Jim Olson said on a video call with reporters.
To make room for a new retractable seating system and install a new ice floor slab, the floor is getting raised 2 feet and lengthening the arena bowl by roughly 12 feet at each end.
“(Delta Center) was built solely for basketball,” Olson said. “When you come and plop the size of an ice sheet in that venue with those sightlines, the geometry just doesn’t work, and so that’s where you come up with the riser-system configuration. You come up with raising the floor 2 feet. We are absolutely protecting the basketball experience but then also creating a great hockey experience where all the seats can see all the ice.”
The plan is for renovations at the building that opened in 1991 to take place over the next three summers.
The NHL team, which was called the Utah Hockey Club as a placeholder after Ryan and Ashley Smith bought the Arizona Coyotes and moved them to Salt Lake City, is expected to have a full-time name before next season. Its YouTube channel showed as the Utah Mammoth for a brief time Tuesday night.
Mammoth, Outlaws and Utah Hockey Club are the finalists.
“Progress continues on exploring all three of the name options that were chosen as finalists by our fans,” SEG executive Mike Maughan said. “We’re fully on track to announce a permanent name and identity ahead of the ’25-26 NHL season and look forward to sharing that with our fans when we do.”
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The Idaho State Journal invites you to take part in the community conversation. But those who don’t play nice may be uninvited.
Comments that are:
will be deleted. Repeat offenders will lose commenting privileges.
Comments are opinions of the author only, and do not reflect the opinions or views of Idaho State Journal.
Your comment has been submitted.
Reported
There was a problem reporting this.
Log In
To view our latest e-Edition, click the image on the left.
Sign up today, or manage your subscriptions, to one of our great newsletters:
- Special Offers
- Daily Headlines
- and much more!
Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.
We recommend switching to one of the following browsers:
Sorry, an error occurred.
Already Subscribed!
Cancel anytime
Account processing issue – the email address may already exist
Sign up with
Thank you .
Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.
Check your email for details.
Invalid password or account does not exist
Sign in with
Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.
An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account.
No promotional rates found.
Secure & Encrypted
Secure transaction. Secure transaction. Cancel anytime.
Thank you.
Your gift purchase was successful! Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.
A receipt was sent to your email.
