(Megan Marshall | Carbon County Mammoths) The Carbon County Mammoth sign hangs outside of the local pond the program skates on.
Megan Marshall hopes for consistently cold winters.
The dropping temperatures mean that Utah’s bodies of water will freeze, and that is what Marshall needs for the youth hockey program she started in Price.
Pass by the pond at the Carbon County Fairgrounds on a brisk January evening, and you will see the Mammoths. Not the NHL’s Utah Mammoth, but the Carbon County Mammoths, who have been practicing on the outdoor ice for nearly a decade.
Marshall’s son grew up a Detroit Red Wings fan and, when he was around 10 years old, wanted to start playing hockey. The closest indoor rinks to Price are either in Provo or Grand Junction, Colorado, which are an hour and a half away in each direction. So, instead, Marshall brought the game to her son. She started the nonprofit youth hockey club to introduce the sport to kids who would not have had the chance otherwise.
“We got a lot of equipment donated so that kids could come and play, get exposed to it without having to invest a lot of cost up front — no cost up front,” Marshall said. “We had volunteer coaches and managers, just passionate adults who felt the same way as I did.”
The Korth Rebel Foundation — and its founder, Don Korth — were instrumental in providing the free equipment, Marshall said. The nonprofit foundation helps children play hockey through events, training and donations.
(Megan Marshall | Carbon County Mammoths) The logo for the Carbon County Mammoths, a youth hockey program in Price.
When it came to deciding on a name, Marshall did not have to look far for inspiration. The Huntington Mammoth (which is famous for its complete skeleton and preservation of DNA) is on display at the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum in Price.
“It’s an arctic animal, it’s fierce, it is intimidating and makes a great logo,” Marshall said.
What was the Carbon County Mammoths’ reaction when they saw Utah’s NHL team’s new branding?
“We were ecstatic. We were blasting that on our social media pages about how excited we were. We just felt like they saw what we saw — that it is the perfect representation of our area,” Marshall said. “If our kids can play as little Carbon County Mammoths and maybe grow up someday to be an NHL Mammoth, all the better.”
Nathaniel Christiansen has been with the Carbon County Mammoths since their early days as a volunteer coach, advocate and hockey parent. Christiansen saw one of Marshall’s posts on Facebook after he and his family moved to the area. He then got his son involved and signed up to be a coach.
Christiansen is from Grand Junction and played hockey there through middle and high school when the rink was first built. He knows what that kind of infrastructure can mean to these programs.
(Megan Marshall | Carbon County Mammoths) Members of the Carbon County Mammoths during a practice.
“I got to watch it from never having a rink to flourishing into a very high-level hockey program and a college team that did very well,” Christiansen said.
He hopes the same reality can be true for the Carbon County Mammoths one day.
“We have a great group of kids. I was very surprised at the number of kids we have come out and what they’re willing to go through just to play on a rough pond that’s melting half the time. Their attitudes doing it are really great. These kids are playing with dirt mounds as their boards, and they’re falling through the ice and just laughing,” Christiansen said.
“I know a lot of kids really want to see an actual team. They want to play, they want to travel, they want to play other kids. Right now, it’s impossible to do that when you play pond hockey.”
The Mammoths have seen growth in interest and participation over time, especially with the NHL’s arrival in Utah. Marshall said they started with 12 athletes their first year and had over 40 last season. Marshall promotes the group through social media, local schools and other local organizations.
It is hard to fully expand, though, when the schedule is so unpredictable.
“Unfortunately, we have a very limited season because we play pond hockey that is uncovered. When they say, ‘When does the season start?’ it’s ‘Well, when the ice is solid.’ When does it end? When it melts. That’s our season,” Marshall said. “We play pond hockey because that’s what we have.”
(Megan Marshall | Carbon County Mammoths) The Carbon County Mammoths skating on the local pond.
Drew Pitcher is another volunteer coach and parent for the Carbon County Mammoths who has searched for solutions for his six-year-old son, Jack, to skate. Pitcher is from Canada and grew up with ice rinks all over. He did not realize how unique that was until he moved to Utah, he said.
Pitcher has driven Jack to Peaks Ice Arena in Provo for the Utah Mammoth’s youth camp and supplements it with the local skills, drills and scrimmages that the Carbon County Mammoths provide.
“I feel lucky that I’ve been able to drive down to Provo to take them to this learn to skate [program]. But I just don’t think that there are a ton of families who would be able to do that in our community. Bringing it a bit closer would make it more accessible to more families, more kids,” Pitcher said. “I think if ice skating and whatnot was as accessible to kids as the Junior Jazz program is, I think that would be so awesome.”
Smith Entertainment Group — which owns the Utah Mammoth and Utah Jazz — has been working to expand its youth hockey initiative throughout the state.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Hockey Club center Nick Schmaltz (8) celebrates a goal as Utah Hockey Club hosts the Tampa Bay Lightning, NHL hockey at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 22, 2025.
During the Mammoth’s inaugural season, approximately 10,000 kids directly took part in the team’s programming. The Learn-to-Play saw 600 kids (ages 5-11 years old) participate in the 6-8 week foundational class. Over 1,300 youth participated in the Hockey 101 clinics that were held at 20 community centers around the state, and, through youth ticketing programs, over 3,500 hockey players and their families attended NHL games at Delta Center last season.
Kristen Bowness, who is the Youth Program Director for the Mammoth, has been at the forefront of the effort.
“Definitely focused a lot on the grassroots level. Just providing the opportunity to give hockey a try. Thankfully, there’s already a really strong, established youth ecosystem here in place,” Bowness said. “When we came in, we wanted to support what was in place but also provide the opportunity to give hockey a try at a discounted rate because, as we all know, hockey is a very expensive sport. We wanted to erase that barrier of cost as much as we could.”
As part of that mission this summer, the team is currently hosting its first-ever statewide “Mammoth Week” from July 26 to Aug. 2. The mobile fanfest is stopping in seven cities — from Logan to St. George — and offers free street hockey clinics and affordable on-ice clinics.
The Mammoth have looked to support the preexisting youth hockey groups, too. SEG donated $20,000 to the Utah Amateur Hockey Association in March, followed by a promise from team governor Ryan Smith that SEG will donate up to $500,000 per rink for up to 20 new rinks built in communities across Utah.
(Megan Marshall | Carbon County Mammoths) Members of the Carbon County Mammoths skate on the local pond.
The Carbon County Mammoths could benefit greatly from that kind of financial boost.
“It would mean the world,” Marshall said. “If we had an arena here that was big enough to cater to hockey tournaments and bring teams from outside the area to come and compete, it would mean the world of difference to our local economy, our tourism. And more importantly, give these kids an opportunity to play the sport and maybe have a future in it.”
For now, the Carbon County Mammoths will continue to cross their fingers for a frozen pond and find joy in the sessions local leaders like Marshall have worked to put together. And they’ll cheer on the NHL Mammoth while doing it, too.
“It is something they can set their eyes on and say, ‘I want to do that. I want to play in my home state. I want to play professionally, I want to pursue that,’” Christiansen said. “I think that just gives them a different motivation.”
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