The Utah Mammoth Have A Name. For Owner Ryan Smith, There's Much More To Be Done.
Chairman Ryan Smith of Smith Entertainment Group speaks during an introductory press conference ... More announcing the Utah Mammoth on May 7, 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by)
Now that his NHL team has a name and logo, Utah Mammoth owner Ryan Smith is keeping his gaze set on what's to come.
'On to the next,' he said Thursday, one day after the Mammoth identity was unveiled. By that point, the club's two-minute reveal video had logged more than eight million views and its new hashtag, #TusksUp, had already been used more than 20,000 times, according to team sources.
And while the new Mammoth jerseys aren't ready for sale at this time, retail sales of Mammoth merchandise at the Delta Center team store doubled the strong single-day totals that the team put up during its 'Welcome to Utah' party last April, and its draft party last June.
Getting to this point has been a whirlwind. It was April 18, 2024, when the league announced the sale of the Arizona Coyotes' hockey operations to the Smith Entertainment Group for $1.2 billion. Less than a week later, players and staff were welcomed to Salt Lake City — first at the airport, then at a jam-packed Delta Center.
Now, the team has completed its first season, entered Stage 2 of its arena renovations, established a temporary practice facility and will have its new purpose-built practice facility with two ice sheets and team office space ready by September. Plus, the Mammoth have established community outreach and youth hockey programs and built out a robust roster of corporate partners.
'You are executing beyond our wildest imagination,' said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at Wednesday's media conference. 'For that — not only did we trust you, you did more than we ever could have expected, and we're grateful for that.'
Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, speaks alongside Ryan Smith, chairman of Smith Entertainment ... More Group, and Ashley Smith, co-founder of Smith Entertainment Group, during an introductory press conference announcing the Utah Mammoth as the permanent franchise name at Delta Center on May 7, 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by)
As for the name itself — Mammoth was a community effort, selected after a four-stage fan-voting process which saw more than 850,000 ballots cast.
That's not for the faint of heart. But in the end, the Mammoth stampeded to a clear victory.
'When you commit to that, you're really going to have to deliver on that commitment,' Smith said. 'What if the fans don't like it? What if they come up with some really weird names that you don't like, or your design team doesn't like at all, so they're working on something they have no conviction on? To have it go the way it did, and everyone kind of land the plane, was the payoff for all the madness.'
That type of customer-focused thinking — and much of the Mammoth playbook — carries over from Smith's days in the tech industry, where he founded the experience management software firm, Qualtrics.
'In tech, you learn real quick that you're not going to get everything right, and that's generally accepted,' Smith said. 'Also, you learn that when you launch something, it's not going to be right the first time, or the first iteration. And everything we build in tech is iterative. After operating at a high level in tech for 20 years, you're definitely bringing that mentality that whatever we launch is probably going to be wrong, and we're going to iterate on it. There's no pride of authorship and the customer is pretty much right. Let's give them a big seat at the table.'
One example of that iterative approach is SEG's ongoing renovation plan for the Delta Center. Built for basketball in 1991, many parts of the arena didn't have proper sightlines for hockey. But Smith was confident that a solution could be found.
By the beginning of the inaugural season, his team had established an initial capacity of 11,131 seats for hockey. Those seats were sold out for every game. Then, the club used its clearly-designated 'single goal view seats' for giveaways, community groups and discounted ticket programs.
This summer, with an eye toward maintaining close-to-the-action intimacy for the Utah Jazz's NBA games while also making the arena more functional for hockey, work is underway on elongating the bowl, raising the floor and installing risers of retractable seats that will optimize the viewing experience for both sports.
When all is said and done, the arena's capacity will be about 17,000 for hockey, and 19,000 for basketball.
That also sets up hockey at the Delta Center to be the centerpiece of the 2034 Winter Olympics — which will be the first time the Olympics have been held in an NHL city since Vancouver in 2010.
Smith's infrastructure projects, including the revitalization of the downtown core of Salt Lake City with the development of a sports and entertainment district between the arena and the convention center, dovetail neatly with Olympic preparations and align with SEG's mission to celebrate and elevate the state of Utah and its residents.
Utah Hockey Club owner Ashley Smith drops the ceremonial first puck for Clayton Keller of the Utah ... More Hockey Club and Nick Foligno #17 of the Chicago Blackhawks prior to the inaugural game of the Utah Hockey Club on October 08, 2024 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by)
'I can't even articulate how exhilarating this last year has been,' said Ashley Smith, SEG's co-founder, at Wednesday's event. 'We are all together at SEG and in Utah on our same goals that we started with. We're going to bring the Stanley cup to Utah. We want to do good in the state of Utah with this platform. We want to unite Utah around the Mammoth and around the Jazz, and we want to create the best fan experience in all of sports.'
While Utah fell short of qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in its first season, the team's 19th-place finish in the league standings set it up for an unexpected bit of good luck earlier this week. With just a 3.2 percent chance of success, Utah's four-number combination came up in the second drawing of Monday's 2025 NHL Draft Lottery, moving the team up from 14th to fourth in June's first round.
'Good things happen to good people,' said Bettman on Wednesday. 'Luck and skill and execution and vision and passion have always been on your agenda, and it's great to see good things happen to good people — the two of you and this entire community.'
The team's next top prospect will pull the new Utah Mammoth jersey over his head at Round 1 of the 2025 NHL Draft at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on June 27.
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