“TThe fact has become very clear to us this year that hockey just doesn’t work economically in this market,” Larry H. Miller said at a press conference in March 1994, announcing that he had sold the minor league Salt Lake Golden Eagles to a group in Detroit under the then owner of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons. The Golden Eagles needed 7,000 people per game at the Delta Center, Miller told reporters that day, and “if you look at the paid attendance numbers, we’re not quite halfway there yet.” The fact was, Miller said, “the natural homegrown fan base just isn’t there.”
A few days later, some members of that small fan base grumbled to the Salt Lake Tribune that, despite the financial picture, things could have changed. “Now it’s time for hockey,” Pat Kremers, president of the Screamin’ Eagles Booster Club, told the newspaper, noting that the “explosion in roller hockey and street hockey is just beginning.” Others were more concerned about what would come next – or more specifically, not. “Now that there is no more hockey in Salt Lake, how can interest be generated?” Darren Wack, the owner of Hockey Haven, a sporting goods store, asked the newspaper reporter.
It’s not like there hasn’t been hockey in Salt Lake City since then. The IHL’s Utah Grizzlies moved to the Delta Center a year after the Golden Eagles left and won the league championship the following season. But that win remains a highlight for the team. The Grizzlies, who became part of the American Hockey League after 2005, never won another title. And as far as hockey interest goes, the Grizzlies’ attendance numbers seemed to back up Miller’s comments in 1994 — since 2005-06, the Grizzlies have have average approximately 4,500 fans per match. In fact, hockey is “super low” in Utah’s sports rankings, Cole Bagley, who grew up in Utah and played hockey, told the Guardian. Bagley, now a Utah Hockey Club beat reporter at KSL Sports, admitted that Utah is more of a college football or basketball place, with established teams like BYU and the Delta Center’s other residents, the NBA’s Utah Jazz, getting most of the attention Pull. Before last spring, Bagley said, the most popular NHL team in the area was probably the Vegas Golden Knights.
But like the city of Las Vegas, which wholeheartedly embraced the Golden Knights upon their arrival, Salt Lake City has taken an immediate liking to its hockey club, which was hastily transferred from Arizona in April after the team’s repeated failure to find a new home arena find. The large crowd that filled the Delta Center to welcome the former Coyote players a few days later seems to remain. The Delta Center’s typical hockey capacity is just over 11,000, but that has been expanded to over 16,000, including seats where only one target is visible – and others who, thanks to the strange arrangement, might offer something the best vantage point in the competition. At the home opener, that Utah won 5-2 against the Chicago Black Hawks, Delta Center fans set an arena beer sales record, setting back Of that, $120,000 is worth during the game.
On the ice, the first month of the Utah HC wasn’t as great as the beer sales. After winning three straight to start the inaugural season, Utah dropped six of its next eight and finished the month with a 5-4-2 record, still good enough for mid-table in the Central Division . Key defender Sean Durzi was injured and will be sidelined for four to five months, compounding the problems for a d-line already missing John Marino indefinitely. All of this has meant that Utah HC, just a month into its existence, may already exist looking for business and encouraging a must-win mentality similar to that of, well, the Vegas Golden Knights. But through the first few weeks, the support hasn’t wavered, even as fans navigate the new relationship, apparently still struggle with the limited ways to incorporate “Utah” into a song. And there are still no Utah HC retail jerseys – they won’t be on sale until 2025.
But even outside the arena, Utah HC is getting early love. “I’m noticing more and more people in the state are wearing clothes, whether they’re college students at universities or people in the grocery stores [or] You know, people in the gym,” Bagley said, and brand new Utah HC decals now adorn cars alongside the more established Jazz decals. “People really embrace the team.”
Is it sustainable? As the Golden Eagles were packing their bags, Wack, the sporting goods store owner, told the Tribune he worried about the generational impact on hockey without a local team for kids to support. “The first introduction to any sport is important,” Wack told the newspaper at the time, recalling a toddler in his store, fresh from a Golden Eagles game, hoping for a pair of skates.
In late October, the Utah HC announced it would begin to support youth hockey programs in the state. Anecdotally, Bagley, a father of two young boys – both of whom now play hockey – says he has already noticed a rise in interest in hockey among young people. And while USA Hockey couldn’t provide final registration numbers for this fall, the organization says, “There is certainly interest in the sport… and we have no doubt the numbers will increase.” Bagley’s own love for hockey was sparked during the 2002 Winter Olympics, after watching the U.S. play Russia with his father, who is now a Utah HC fan. “What’s most enjoyable for me personally is that my relationship with my father has really blossomed during this time,” Bagley said. “I talk to my dad every day about hockey because, you know, we just love the game.”
Utah HC hopes the Bagley and his father are part of a new start for hockey in the state.