SALT LAKE CITY — Speaking just hours before his new team takes the ice for its inaugural season Tuesday night, Utah Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith admitted things were “a little surreal.”
Smith made the comment, alongside his wife, Ashley, and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, in reference to the last time he stood outside Delta Center, welcoming back its namesake sponsor more than a year ago.
“…at that time, like hockey would have been like a foreign thought if you would have told us like less than a year later,” he said.
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The dream became a reality in the spring when the Arizona Coyotes fled north to Salt Lake City, starting a process that resembled a harried power play to get the team in place and ready to go in just months.
“What we’re seeing is one Utah truly coming together,” Smith said. “Whether it’s a Democrat or Republican, or from universities or church or whatever it is, like everyone kind of puts it aside for a second and comes together and that’s not very, I’d say familiar in the world today.
“And so that’s why I love this place and that’s why we choose to live here.”
Bettman and the league placed a bet on Utah being prepared to handle the magnitude of relocation in a short period of time, and even before the puck drops against the Blackhawks, the commissioner felt as if he has come up a winner.
“We had extremely high expectations over the number of things that needed to be accomplished and how they needed to get done in a time frame that you heard is unprecedented,” Bettman remarked. “What you accomplished is both unprecedented and remarkable.”
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While most are keeping postseason expectations in check, seeing as how the franchise had previously made the NHL Playoffs just once in the last 10 years in Arizona, one VIP is setting her sites a bit higher.
“Anybody ready to win the Stanley Cup?” asked Ashley Smith to the crowd outside the arena.
No matter the final score Tuesday or the club’s final record at the end of the season, the Smiths believe they’re a championship franchise thanks to the off-the-ice team who have worked overtime to make the regular season opener a reality.
“You have literally gone out and your families have sacrificed,” said Ryan Smith of his employees. “You haven’t slept, you’ve been pulling 18-hour days for everyone else to enjoy a show for tonight and further.”
The “further” is building a winning partnership between a team, state and league that will create moments of excitement that the club’s siblings, the Utah Jazz, have done for decades.
“With this collaboration comes, something that we know is going to be special,” said Bettman, “not just for the NHL, but we know for everybody in Utah.”
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