Early reaction to Utah Hockey Club is strong as it enters crowded Salt Lake market

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — They became a Salt Lake City institution, continuing to draw sellout crowds long after Stockton-to-Malone eventually turned into a rebuilding team that very well could be going on year three of missing the playoffs.

Turns out there is room for more than one major professional team in town.

The arrival of the team formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes sparked enormous interest with more than 34,000 season-ticket deposits made in the first 48 hours after becoming available. And only 8% of those deposits for the Utah Hockey Club also were Jazz season-ticket holders, which means even more customers for Ryan and Ashley Smith, who own both teams.

“So we immediately became very, very bullish on the demand from the community,” said Chris Barney, Smith Entertainment Group president of revenue and commercial strategy. “Another really interesting nuance about that group is 63% of those people hadn’t even been to an arena event in a year. You don’t really get the chance in sports to cultivate a new audience.”

The Jazz, who moved to Salt Lake in 1979 after five years in New Orleans, created fans for the future by developing them when they were young through Junior Jazz. Barney said it’s the nation’s largest youth basketball program, and the idea is to create a similar legacy in hockey.

But the Utah Hockey Club plans to buttress existing programs rather than dictate the path of youth programs. The Utah Outliers junior team won championships the past three years and plans to expand its 17- to 20-year-old program with younger teams as it moves into a new 2,000-seat facility in Park City, Utah.

Having the NHL in the neighborhood, Outliers general manager and coach Paul Taylor hopes, will only increase interest among potential younger players.

“I think once the team starts, you’re going see a lot of interest, and kids are going to start choosing the hockey stick over a basketball or soccer ball or football,” Taylor said.. “… It just builds their dreams when the best players in the world come into your backyard, and they’re part of your community fabric as your home team.”

Beyond cultivating a young fan base, there’s also the task of educating those who haven’t watched hockey much, if at all, but are curious.

There also could be those with a mild interest in the sport, having watched an occasional game on TV, but who don’t have a firm grasp on the difference between icing and offside.

“But we also know there’s hockey people here,” said Travis Henderson, senior vice president for broadcasting for the UHC and Jazz. “So (it’s) just striking that balance of teaching and elevating the game but not talking down to the hockey fans we know are here and have watched their whole lives. So it’s an interesting balance, but we’re aware of it.”

Utah games will be televised over the air and available through a streaming service that also includes behind-the-scenes content. Several streaming packages are available, including one that combines the UHC and Jazz.

The Utah Hockey Club is the shiny new toy, and the metropolitan area of more than 1.2 million people has already shown great enthusiasm for a team that played in Arizona State University’s 5,000-seat arena the past two years.

“I think the reaction has been about as good as anyone could expect,” longtime Salt Lake sports talk radio co-host Patrick Kinahan said. “This town is ready to explode to be a big-time sports town, and hockey gets them one step closer to that. I went to the first preseason game just to get a feel.

“It felt like it was (a) late-season Jazz game with the momentum of the team going to the playoffs.”

Utah has a young corps of players led by Clayton Keller and a defense upgraded with some offseason moves that included trading for Mikhail Sergachev.

General manager Bill Armstrong has built mostly through the draft, and he is hesitant to forecast whether the team can make a legitimate push for the playoffs this season.

He prefers to stick with the day-to-day approach for Utah, which opens its season Oct. 8 at home against the Chicago Blackhawks.

“We are probably still the second- or third-youngest team in the National Hockey League,” Armstrong said. “That’s part of the rebuild. Some nights, you’re going to look like world beaters and win 9-0, and other nights, you’re not going to do that.”

There is a lot of competition for the attention of sports fans in the area beyond the NHL and NBA teams. BYU and Utah are Power Four Conference teams with passionate fan bases. Real Salt Lake of the MLS averages more than 20,000 fans.

How long the honeymoon lasts for the NHL team remains to be seen.

“I don’t really ever put a time stamp on it,” Barney said. “We’re in the middle of a 292-game sellout streak for the Jazz and we haven’t made the playoffs two years in a row. If you would have been at our last regular-season game against the Rockets this last season, you would have been like, ‘Are these guys both chasing a playoff spot for home-court advantage?’ Our fans are just incredible.”

But he also acknowledged the reality of how the bottom line can affects fans’ overall experience.

“There is something and our data shows this,” Barney said. “Hot dogs are warmer and drinks are colder when we win.”

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