Utah Hockey Club is drawing immediate interest in Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) The Utah Jazz did more than just establish themselves in this city.

They became a Salt Lake City institution and continued to draw sellout crowds long after Stockton-to-Malone finally turned into a rebuilding team that could very well continue in its third year of missing the playoffs.

Turns out there's room for more than one big professional team in town.

The arrival of the team formerly known as the Arizona coyotes generated huge interest with more than 34,000 deposits on season tickets in the first 48 hours after they became available. And only 8% of those deposits for the Utah Hockey Club were also Jazz season ticket holders, which means even more customers for Ryan and Ashley Smith, who own both teams.

“So we immediately became very optimistic about community demand,” says Chris Barney, president of revenue and commercial strategy for Smith Entertainment Group. Another really interesting nuance about that group is that 63% of those people hadn't even been to an arena event in a year. In sports you don't really get the chance to cultivate new audiences.

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

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

The fact that the NHL is nearby, Outliers general manager and coach Paul Taylor hopes, will only increase interest among potential younger players.

I think once the team starts you'll see a lot of interest, and kids will choose the hockey stick over a basketball, football or soccer ball,” Taylor said.. “…It just builds their dreams as the best players in the world world come to your backyard and become part of your community fabric as a home team.

In addition to cultivating a young fan base, there is also the task of educating people who have not or hardly watched hockey, but are curious.

There may also be people with a mild interest in the sport, who have seen the occasional match on TV, but who do not really understand the difference between icing and offside.

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

Utah games are broadcast over the air and are available through a streaming service that also includes behind-the-scenes content. There are several streaming packages available, including one that combines the Utah Hockey Club and Jazz.

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

“I think the response has been about as good as anyone would expect,” said Patrick Kinahan, longtime Salt Lake Sports Talk radio host. “This city is about to explode into becoming a major sports city, and hockey gets them one step closer to that. I went to the first preseason game to get an idea.

It felt like it was a late-season Jazz game, with the team's momentum moving toward the playoffs.

The Utah Hockey Club's former Arizona Coyotes roster continues to grow

Utah has a young roster led by Clayton Keller and a defense that has been upgraded with some offseason moves, including trading for Mikhail Sergachev. General manager Bill Armstrong has built largely through the draft, and he's hesitant to predict whether the team can make a legitimate run for the playoffs this season.

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

We are still probably the second or third youngest team in the National Hockey League,” Armstrong said. That is part of the reconstruction. Some nights you look like world beaters and win 9-0, and other nights you don't.

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

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

I never actually put a time stamp on it, Barney said. We were in the middle of a 292-game sellout streak for the Jazz and we didn't make the playoffs two years in a row. If you were at our final regular season game against the Rockets last season, you would have thought, are these guys both chasing a playoff spot for home field advantage? Our fans are just incredible.”

But he also acknowledged the reality of how the bottom line can impact the overall fan experience.

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