Latest news with #UtahHockey
Forbes
08-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Name Not The Same: NHL's HC Becomes 'Mammoth' In 2025-26
The team that shall be named is no longer going through life as the Utah Hockey Club. The franchise has selected the 'Mammoth' as its official name, and that selection came after 13 months of consternation and four rounds of fan voting. The name Mammoth relates to a powerful, 14-foot-tall animal that roamed the Utah area 10,000 years ago. The Smith Entertainment Group made the announcement Wednesday and explained that the naming is a key step in establishing the growth of the franchise. 'The community chose the Utah Mammoth brand, and it stands as a symbol of who we are, where we came from and the unstoppable force we're building together,' said owners Ryan and Ashley Smith. The team colors from the team's first year Utah remain the same. The Mammoth jerseys are rock black, salt white and mountain blue. Other names that were considered included the Outlaws, Wasatch, Blizzard and Yeti. The latter name had to be taken out of the running because the hockey team could not reach an agreement with the YETI cooler company. The franchise went through its first season in Salt Lake City as the Utah Hockey Club and was often referred to as the Utah HC. The arrival of the franchise in Utah came as the NHL cut its ties with the Arizona Coyotes at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season. The Coyotes had started life in the desert as the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996-97 and changed its name to the state affiliation in 2014-15. The Coyotes made the playoffs in just one of its last 12 seasons. They finished their run in Arizona playing in the 5,000-seat Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University after multiple attempts to build new facilities failed. While it appears that the team simply relocated from Arizona to Utah, the NHL made it clear that the Utah HC is considered a new franchise. It did not take the Coyotes' history with it, but this team had the same players and coaching staff that closed the previous season in Arizona. The franchise was widely accepted in its new location. Utah played at the Delta Center, the same arena that serves as the home to the NBA's Utah Jazz. The arena sold out 11,131 seats for the full season along with more than 4,000 obstructed view seats for the bargain price of $10. The team says that renovation of the Delta Center will take place in the coming years to make sure that all seats offer a complete view of the game. However, specific dates for the arena changes have not been disclosed. The first year of the team in Utah saw limited success. The Utah HC did not make the playoffs, but the team with a 38-31-13 record and 89 points. That left them seven points behind the St. Louis Blues, the team that finished in the No. 8 spot of the Western Conference's playoff structure. While the Utah HC was far from a dominant team, they were extremely competitive on the road with a 20-16-5 record. Head coach Andre Tourigny's team played with quite a bit of resilience in its first season in Utah, and the Mammoth has some legitimate talent to build around in 2025-26 and future seasons. Center Clayton Keller is a legitimate star who scored 30 goals and 60 assists for 90 points. Fellow centers Logan Cooley (65 points) and Nick Schmaltz (63 points) give Tourigny and the Mammoth strength up the middle. Defenseman Mikhail Sergachev earned a championship pedigree during his time with the Tampa Bay Lightning and is the anchor of the team's blue line after scoring 15 goals and adding 38 assists. Goaltender Karel Vemelka demonstrated legitimacy as a puck stopper with a 26-22-8 record along with a 2.58 goals against average and a .904 save percentage.
Associated Press
06-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Moving up 4th in the NHL draft in the lottery adds to the Utah Hockey Club's exciting summer
When the Utah Hockey Club selected Tij Iginla with the sixth pick and took 10 other players in the first draft since the team moved to Salt Lake City, fans were excited, thinking they would be in the NHL right away. General manager Bill Armstrong tried to temper expectations, telling them, 'No, it takes some time.' After an unexpected victory off the ice Monday night in the draft lottery, the expectations for the club's future are Rocky Mountain high once again. Utah won the second random draw of lottery balls to move up from the 14th pick to No. 4, adding to an already momentous summer that could feature a free agent spending spree with tons of salary cap space and an owner not afraid to spend money, the first phase of massive arena renovations taking place and the full-time name getting unveiled before next season. 'It's a game-changer for us,' Armstrong said on a post-lottery video call with reporters. 'These are exciting times for Utah. ... Just great stuff for the franchise. I can't express in words on the excitement of when that happened and the opportunity in front of us.' Armstrong has over $22 million in room, and with Ryan Smith's ownership group in charge, there's every indication Utah can spend to the annually increasing cap . That was never the case under a procession of penny-pinching owners over the past decade as the Arizona Coyotes. Utah committed $80 million-plus in player salaries this past season, and Smith Entertainment Group along with the city are investing plenty to upgrade downtown Delta Center and increase the capacity of full-ice views to over 16,000 for hockey in an arena initially designed and built primarily for basketball for the NBA's Jazz. 'We are excited for the challenge as we kick off this never-before-done renovation project,' Ryan and wife Ashley Smith said last week. 'This transformation will create the most compelling, welcoming and exciting experience for hockey fans, while also allowing us to maintain the steep vertical seating for basketball that has made Delta Center such a dynamic venue.' And, possibly soon, a venue for playoff hockey. Utah was in the race until the final few weeks of the season before finishing seven points out of the second and final wild-card spot in the Western Conference. 'We were a pretty good team that chased it down the stretch playing meaningful games and chasing a playoff spot,' Armstrong said. 'We're getting to that point where we're becoming a really good team that's going to have a chance to get into the playoffs.' Not counting the expanded pandemic playoffs in 2020, this organization has not qualified since 2012. The building blocks to end that decade-plus drought are there, from captain Clayton Keller and 2022 No. 3 pick and budding star Logan Cooley to two-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev — acquired at the draft last year — and top goaltender Karel Vejmelka . And after drafting a league-high 42 players over the past four years, there might be a temptation to use the fourth pick for immediate help, like someone who is established but still young and entering or in his prime. 'That's something that obviously we'll always talk about,' Armstrong said. 'We'll never shut that door. That's always been an avenue for us to get players, and we're at the position right now as a team where we're trying to make that next step, so we'll always look at that. That's part of the process.' The final step in the naming process is happening, too. The finalists have been narrowed down to Mammoth, Outlaws and Utah Hockey Club, complete with a permanent logo and new jerseys. If the branding process goes as swimmingly as the first year with Smith's group in charge, the results on the business side could even exceed the hockey progress. 'They made a lot of promises, and they exceeded them with what they accomplished in a short period of time,' Commissioner Gary Bettman said last week at a meeting of Associated Press Sports Editors in New York. 'What they accomplished is a testament to Ryan and everybody out there. They dreamed big and they accomplished everything they needed to do, and we're thrilled to have them in the league. It's been an incredibly positive experience, and the players love it, too.' More high-quality players are coming next year and into the future, though Armstrong cautioned that the lottery doesn't speed up the building process and, 'One pick's not going to change our franchise.' But that doesn't dull the internal excitement. 'You've got a chance to get a real game-changer,' Armstrong said. 'We're going to have the opportunity to pick a real good player high in the draft and take a big swing here.' ___ AP Sports Writer Jake Seiner in New York contributed to this report. ___ AP NHL:
