Now that the halfway point of the Utah Hockey Club’s inaugural season has come and gone, let’s compare the expectations to the reality of the NHL in Utah.
How is Salt Lake as an NHL city? How do the players like it? How engaged are the fans? How is game attendance?
We asked, and the players answered.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the Utah HC locker room this season, having both formal and casual conversations with players and team staff nearly every day.
In all those encounters, I have hardly heard a negative thing about Utah as an NHL city. The consensus is that, although players were sad to leave Arizona, they’re glad to have the stability that comes from a permanent home and facilities suited more toward an NHL team — and they love Salt Lake City.
“It’s been great — I have no complaints,” said team captain Clayton Keller. “I have a great neighborhood. … I love seeing the snow. … Everything is easy to get around to.”
Keller also declared his appreciation for the fans.
“They’ve been awesome since day one,” he said. “Every time we have a home game, we know we have a great crowd. They’re always going to support us no matter what happens.”
But he added that the team has to play better to reward the fans that have shown up for them.
Logan Cooley shared a similar thought about Utah Hockey Club fans.
“It’s special to have the support we’ve had,” he said. “The fans show up every night, even though we haven’t been the best at home. It’s still awesome to get their support and have their faith with us.”
Others players have talked about Salt Lake City and Utah in general being great for families.
The only negative feedback I’ve heard is that there may not be as much for visiting teams to do in Salt Lake as in other hockey cities.
Utah Hockey Club players also seem to love the Delta Center, although it has some quirks that haven’t yet been fixed.
“It’s unbelievable,” Cooley said. “It’s such a special place to play. It almost feels like the fans are on top of you, just how steep the arena is. … Playing in that rink, it’s really easy to get up for games.”
The Delta Center currently has several thousand seats with obstructed views (they have not released the official number). Some seats only block a corner of the ice, while others block everything from the face-off dots to the end boards in the nearest zone.
Smith Entertainment Group, which owns the team, plans on renovating the arena over the next few summers to open up the views.
In the meantime, SEG is making the most of an imperfect situation by selling limited-view seats for $10 each to college students and shoppers at Smith’s in an attempt to get young adults and families interested in the sport.
Despite current arena-related challenges, the team has enjoyed strong attendance in its first season in Salt Lake City.
As Cooley mentioned, the seating is sloped in such a way that every seat is somewhat close to the ice. The tin roof echoes the sound downward, making for an ear-piercing experience when the crowd gets going.
Tonight, the Arizona Coyotes will play their first game in 5000-seat Mullet Arena, shared with Arizona State.
Here's a look at the temporary visitor's locker room.
(📸: @GinoHard_) pic.twitter.com/3ZiVABffB0
The purpose of this article is not to compare Utah to Arizona, but it’s clear that even though the Delta Center isn’t perfect, the players view their Utah arena as more suitable.
Mullett Arena, the college stadium in Tempe where the Coyotes played their last two seasons, seats 5,000 people. The locker rooms were situated in an added wing with a temporary roof over the tunnel connecting them to the playing surface. Every so often, the players would have to walk through the rain to get to the locker rooms — during NHL games.
The locker rooms at the Delta Center are what you’d expect to see at an NHL arena: spacious and comfortable, well-designed and luxurious.
Utah HC is using the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns as a temporary practice facility.
A permanent practice facility is under construction at The Shops at South Town in Sandy.
The Olympic Oval is imperfect, but it has some unique aspects that play to the team’s advantage.
For example, the playing surface is surrounded by an Olympic-size speed skating track. The team uses that on occasion for speed testing and injury rehab. There’s also a running track around the outside, where the team sometimes conducts fitness testing.
The main downside of the Olympic Oval is the location of the visitors’ locker room, though that doesn’t affect Utah HC.
The main locker room is in a convenient location, but when visiting teams practice there, they have to trek up and down two flights of stairs to get to and from the ice. Most of the visiting teams have just practiced at the Delta Center, but the few who have used the Olympic Oval have seemed more amused than bothered by the setup, based on my observations.
At any rate, the new practice facility will be done before the start of next season, barring any major setbacks.
It will feature two playing surfaces and will be open to the community when not in use by the NHL teams.
I recently interviewed Chris Barney, the president of Revenue and Commercial Strategy at SEG, and asked about transitioning the team to Utah in such a short time frame. Specifically, I wanted to know whether he’d do it all again if given the chance.
He did not mince words.
“Absolutely,” he said.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the same thing in October when I asked him the same question.
“Absolutely,” Bettman said. “I mean, if you had a choice, you would do it in a longer period of time. When you look at Seattle and Vegas, there were a couple of years to ramp up. That’s why what they did here was simply incredible. And it takes a great organization and great leaders of an organization to accomplish something this monumental this quickly.”
Both men pointed to Ryan and Ashley Smith, the owners of SEG, as driving factors in the team’s success at establishing itself in Utah.
“He was able to do this in a timeframe that I don’t believe anybody else could have accomplished,” Bettman said of Ryan Smith.
