Utah Hockey Club | Schedule met for first season

(Kearns) Bill Armstrong stood in the Utah Hockey Club’s locker room at the temporary practice facility as players filed in and out last week of a space that didn’t even exist until recently.

The rapid transformation to meet National Hockey League standards is hard to comprehend, even for the team’s general manager, and it’s a testament to management’s commitment since acquiring the Arizona Coyotes last April.

New owners Ryan and Ashley Smith could have scraped together just enough money to get by while a permanent training facility was being built. But even with a tight schedule, they chose to go all out, even for a building the club likely won’t use for a year.

“I couldn’t have asked for more as a player,” defenseman Sean Durzi said. “They built a full-season facility for us – world class – in five months. If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is.”

The temporary facility, located at the Utah Olympic Oval where many Winter Olympic athletes train, was the most urgent and perhaps most difficult task.

That wasn’t the only one, however, as the club raced against time after NHL owners approved the move on April 18 to have everything ready for the season opener Oct. 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Among the items on the to-do list were an initial renovation of the Delta Center, relocating players, coaches and management staff from the Phoenix area and starting work on a permanent practice facility so it could be completed in time for the 2025-26 season.

The staff of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, also owned by the Smiths, helped with those efforts. The Jazz’s business connections in the Salt Lake City area also helped ease the transition.

The temporary training facility was the priority, as the players spend much more time there than at the arena. Having the Olympic Oval also helped, as much of what was needed was already in place.

But not everything. The locker room, the coaches’ offices, the video room and the players’ lounge had to be built.

“We don’t have enough space at the ring to have a permanent facility,” said Jazz president Jim Olson, who also leads facility projects for Smith Entertainment Group.

“So we had to tighten up the spaces. It was important to us that it wasn’t a makeshift facility, but that the players could really feel comfortable in it and feel like it was giving them what they needed to achieve their goals, which is to be a great hockey team.”

Every hockey team, great or not, needs a decent place to play, and the Delta Center was not NHL-ready when the Coyotes were purchased.

The 33-year-old amphitheater was built for Jazz and was renovated at a cost of $125 million in 2017.

To have the building ready for the first game of the season, locker rooms, coaches’ offices and space for the training staff were needed.

Olson added that it is important for players to have a direct path to the ice, especially crucial in the event of an injury so the athlete can return to the locker room quickly.

The broadcast team, game operations and media also needed workspaces.

And fans had to be able to watch the game without having their view obstructed, at least most nights. Capacity for this season is 11,131, with obstructed-view seats added for some games.

Future renovations to the amphitheater will increase capacity and what officials hope will be an improved playing experience.

“To get the sightlines where we need them will require some major renovations,” Olson said. “Because it’s taking all of our efforts to get ready for this season, we haven’t considered that yet. But once we know everything is working well this year, we’ll start focusing more on the future.”

The present, however, beats the last two seasons when the Coyotes played at Arizona State University’s facilities.

“It was extremely difficult in the sense that players work their whole lives to play in big arenas,” Armstrong said. “It’s a defining moment for them and we didn’t have that available to them. I think the hardest part was the opposing team’s fans were buying all the tickets.

“That said, I think it’s made them tougher. I think when the Utah fans come out and cheer us on, we’ll appreciate them more.”

The organization also had to orchestrate the relocation of the team itself, which included management, coaches and players.

Forward Clayton Keller, who led the team with 78 points last season, has played his entire career in Arizona, starting with three games in the 2016-17 season before appearing in 82 games the following year.

He said the club had employed a removal company to help the players.

“It was a nice, easy transition,” Keller said.