The then Arizona Coyotes had the NHL’s worst arena situation when they played in the roughly 5,000-seat Mullet Arena. They upgraded to a better, yet still far from optimal, when they moved to the Delta Center in Salt Lake City as the Utah Hockey Club this past offseason. Delta Center was built specifically for basketball and the NBA’s Utah Jazz, who the Utah Hockey Club share the arena with.
There was some good news and bad news coming from a report earlier today about the state of the franchise. In an ESPN article about the team’s naming contest it was mentioned that Delta Center will undergo renovations to improve hockey sightlines.
It’s said to be a “first of its kind” use of retractable seats as part of a multiyear project, although fans will start seeing an improvement next year according to Utah Jazz president Jim Olson. If you want to read into the dynamics of the retractable seating, the announcement from NHL.com does a pretty good job of explaining it.
The good news is that the potentially worst arena (in terms of sightlines) in the NHL will be getting an upgrade for their fans
Delta Center has been stuck with a capacity of around 11,000 and obstructed view seats for hockey fans. Once the three year project is complete the plan is to have a capacity around 17,000 for ice hockey. The bad news is that this most likely means the Utah Hockey Club aren’t destined to get their own area.
The Winter Olympics are set to be in Salt Lake City in 2034. The last Winter Olympics held there in 2002 featured a newly built hockey rink for ice hockey events that became the home arena for the area’s minor league team the Utah Grizzlies now called the Maverick Center. If they built a new rink for the 2034 games, could the Utah Hockey Club just move there?
Over recent years the Olympics have emphasized using pre-existing infrastructure. Using pre-existing venues is a major commitment for the 2028 Summer games in Los Angeles. The 2034 Winter games already pledged to use existing venues, including both Delta Center and Maverick Center, for the games. The inclusion of Maverick Center all but guarantees no new ice hockey facility will be built.
With no new Olympic venue on the horizon and team owner Smith Entertainment Group investing heavily in current arena renovations there appears to be no brand "new" arena for the Utah Hockey Club. Interestingly we don’t remember there ever being so much as a mention of a new arena purpose built for the team, unlike the requirement in place for recent NHL expansion. In Ryan S. Clark’s ESPN article from earlier this season on the long term plan for the franchise, no new arena was mentioned but arena renovations were.
While the team might not be getting a new arena, they are getting a new name. The only comment the team had was saying they are “progressing” on having a new identity for next season. This was after team social channels were temporarily changed to “@UtahMammoth” before being deleted.