SALT LAKE CITY — Delta Center became the 91st unique venue in which the Rangers have played a regular-season game Thursday night when they beat Utah Hockey Club, 5-3, for the first time.
There’s always a sort of buzz to a team that’s competing in a new place, and the Blueshirts were no different.
The NHL era in Utah came quickly thanks to the diligence of owner Ryan Smith, who had been working on getting a team since 2022.
When arena and ownership issues hit a breaking point in Arizona back in April, Smith purchased the Coyotes assets from owner Alex Meruelo for $1.2 billion.
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Braden Schneider, Vincent Trocheck, Ryan Lindgren and Reilly Smith celebrate a goal during the third period against the Utah Hockey Club on January 16, 2025, at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. NHLI via Getty Images
Now, Utah is the 25th state or district in which the Blueshirts have played.
In October, the Salt Lake City Council voted unanimously to approve and help fund Smith Entertainment Group’s renovation plans of Delta Center, which was constructed for the NBA Jazz and needs to be fixed for dual use with hockey now on the schedule, too.
The remodel, which is expected to unfold in three phases and address the 4,000-5,000 seats with obstructed views of the ice, is expected to be completed by the start of the 2027-28 NHL and NBA seasons.
“It felt pretty good,” Braden Schneider told The Post of his first touch of Delta Center ice. “I think it’s a cool rink. It’s a little different, it’s pretty steep. It looks nice. Everything that’s here with it is really nice. I think it’s a positive review from me.”
Braden Schneider of the New York Rangers falls to the ice while skating after a loose puck during the first period of a game against the Utah Hockey Club on January 16, 2025, at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. NHLI via Getty Images
The commitment to making hockey work in Utah is evident in the city’s planned contribution of $900 million, as well as in SEG’s pledge to invest a minimum of $3 billion, according to the Sports Business Journal.
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Hockey, however, already had a presence in Salt Lake City.
Before Utah H.C., which is supposed to announce a permanent name between the end of this season and the draft, there were the Utah Grizzlies (now of the ECHL) and the Salt Lake Golden Eagles (defunct).
Peter Laviolette played for the Denver Rangers in 1988-89, which was also the last time the Rangers head coach was in the city.
He got a good laugh remembering how there weren’t many IHL teams around either Denver or Salt Lake City back then.
“God, we must’ve played them 25 times,” he said with a smile after the Rangers held an optional practice at the Olympic Oval in nearby Kearns.
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Head Coach Peter Laviolette of the New York Rangers follows gameplay during the first period of a game against the Utah Hockey Club on January 16, 2025 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. NHLI via Getty Images
The Oval, which was built for indoor speed skating at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, was packed on a Wednesday afternoon with youth hockey and curling practice on the opposite side of where the Rangers skated.
Players had to walk from the Rangers locker room underneath the main level, up a couple flights of stairs and into their designated rink, which was surrounded by a massive speed skating sheet that wrapped around the entire facility.
The arenas and city may be new to most of the Rangers but not for Laviolette or assistant Michael Peca.
Peca has fond memories after winning a gold medal with Team Canada in 2002.
“Practice at the practice arena [felt] good for me because I know the Olympic Games were there,” Artemi Panarin told The Post before the game Thursday. “For me, Olympic Games are something special, and I just enjoy that energy from the arena. Pretty fun.”
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Igor Shesterkin stopped 28 of the 31 shots he faced in his 14th victory of the season.
Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers is seen during the third period against the Utah Hockey Club on January 16, 2025, at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. NHLI via Getty Images
Zac Jones was a healthy scratch for the 10th straight game and the 12th time in the last 13.
The Rangers scored a shorthanded goal for the second straight game, which gave the team seven on the season. That’s good for third in the NHL behind only the Panthers (11) and Lightning (8).
Forward Keanu Dawes is the latest player from the Runnin’ Utes to enter the transfer portal, according to Sam Kayser of League Ready.
The 6-foot-9, 220-pound sophomore announced his intention on Saturday night, just ahead of Utah’s game against Butler on Monday in the inaugural College Basketball Crown at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Dawes is at least the seventh player to enter the portal during the coaching transition from Josh Eilert — who was made interim coach after Craig Smith was fired in late February — to former Utah star Alex Jensen. Jensen was hired on March 6 and will take over full-time once the season ends for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, where he’s an assistant to Jason Kidd.
Dawes transferred from Rice after his freshman season and was part of the Runnin’ Utes’ main rotation, playing in 30 of 32 games, with one start. He led the team with 6.3 rebounds per game and was the fourth-leading scorer at eight points per game.
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The eldest daughter of disgraced Utah parenting blogger Ruby Franke has taken action to help protect other kids with a new child actor law in her home state.
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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill that Shari Franke helped promote, HB322, which gives certain payment and privacy protections to minors involved in entertainment, which could include traditional acting, i.e. acting in TV commercials, or acting in social media content.
“I have been working on drafting HB322 that would protect child influencers in our state,” Shari Franke said in a February Instagram post. “This bill would require parents to create a trust fund for their children and require parents to pay children a minimum amount. It would also allow children influencers, at 18, to have any content they appeared in to be removed from all social media platforms.”
Shari added that certain family bloggers and lobbyists in Utah are against the legislation, but wrote that “[i]f family vlogging is as good as ‘ethical’ family vloggers want you to think, they should not fear being mandated to pay their children (because they say the children are already being paid anyway).”
MOMMY BLOGGER RUBY FRANKE ASKED DAUGHTER FOR ONE THING BEFORE ARREST: MEMOIR
Shari Franke details the last word she said to her mother in her new memoir, “The House of My Mother.”(Handout)
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“And if children are supposedly consenting to being filmed, why fear the kids would want content removed once 18?” she wrote.
Shari’s support of HB322 is one of many actions she has taken to try and help protect the rights of children whose parents are social media influencers since her mother pleaded guilty to multiple counts of child abuse in 2023 and sentenced to years in prison.
MOMMY BLOGGER RUBY FRANKE’S HUSBAND SAYS ‘SOME CRAZY S–T’ WENT ON IN ABUSE ACCOMPLICE’S $5.3M FORTRESS
Blogger Ruby Franke pleaded guilty to child abuse in Utah.(Instagram/ moms_of_truth)
Democratic Utah State Rep. Doug Owens, who sponsored the bill, explained its purpose to Fox News Digital.
“It’s a bill that has a couple different parts: one is it protects traditional child actors, like in the film industry or making commercials, [it] has their parents set aside 15% of their earnings for when they become an adult, and that is copying a number of other states,” Owens said. “And then it goes further and also includes protections for children in social media content.”
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He added that it is “usually” children’s parents featuring kids in their content and, in turn, earning money from that content.
Utah authorities found two malnourished and emaciated children at a home in Utah prior to arresting Franke and Hildebrandt.(Instagram/ moms_of_truth)
“It … requires the parents or other adult to save some of that money for the kids when they get to be an adult,” he said. “And then it also has a third part, which says that if you are a child in content creation, when you get to be an adult and you find that content embarrassing or emotionally damaging in some way, you can have that removed from the website later so that it gives kids some protection for when they get to be an adult.”
“[I]f you are a child in content creation, when you get to be an adult and you find that content embarrassing or emotionally damaging in some way, you can have that removed.”
— Utah State Rep. Doug Owens
Ruby Franke, a 43-year-old mother of six, and Jodi Hildebrandt, a 55-year-old mother of two, ran a joint parenting and lifestyle YouTube channel called ConneXions Classrooms before they were arrested and pleaded guilty to four of six counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse in a St. George courtroom in December 2023.
Utah police found a “panic room” inside Jodi Hildebrandt’s $5.3 million Ivins home, where Ruby Franke sent her children to stay with Hildebrandt.(Washington County Attorney’s Office)
Utah authorities initially arrested Ruby Franke and Hildebrandt for abusing Franke’s two youngest children, a 9-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy, after Franke’s son approached a neighbor for help in 2022, and the neighbor called 911. Some of the abuse occurred in Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah.
911 CALL REVEALS SHOCK OF UTAH MOMMY BLOGGER’S ALLEGED CHILD ABUSE: ‘SHE’S A BAD LADY’
Prior to ConneXions, Ruby Franke ran a parenting vlog, or video blog, called 8Passengers, centered around her own family of six children and two parents. But the 8Passengers empire came crumbling down once users started to notice Franke’s unusual behavior and punishments for her children. Ruby Franke stopped posting to the 8Passengers YouTube channel after her last video was uploaded on June 5, 2019.
In earlier videos without Hildebrandt, Franke complained about her children’s school using TikTok to teach dances, the dangers of sleepovers, bullying, and other topics. Some of her videos included her husband, including a “live couples workshop” about managing finances.(YouTube/ ConneXions)
Fox News is not aware of any evidence that Ruby Franke or anyone associated with 8Passengers engaged in any illegal conduct during the period she was actively vlogging on the 8Passengers YouTube channel.
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Franke and Hildebrandt were both sentenced to serve up to 30 years in prison.
Shari also wrote a memoir titled “The House of My Mother,” in which she explains how she and her siblings were listed as 8Passengers LLC’s “employees.”
Shari Franke explained how she tried for years to get the Department of Family and Child Services to take action against her mother in her memoir.(Hulu)
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In dozens of YouTube videos and social media posts, Franke and Hildebrandt coached parents in calm voices from a living room couch on how to raise their children in “truth.” In a video posted just before their arrests, Hildebrandt said pain can be a good thing for children of a certain age.
The case has prompted discussions about how parenting and lifestyle blogs often present only a sliver of a person’s or family’s reality, as well as children’s rights to their own privacy if their parent is a social media star.
The University of Hawaii men’s basketball team has landed a “Big Fish.”
Isaac “Big Fish” Johnson, a 7-foot, 230-pound center, said he has accepted a scholarship offer from the Rainbow Warriors.
Johnson is transferring from Utah State, where he played in 65 games, starting 43, the past two seasons. He will join the ’Bows in June, and have one season of NCAA eligibility remaining.
“First off, I like the coaching staff,” Johnson said of his decision. “These coaches seem like they want to develop players. … The confidence they have in me and my game, and what I can bring to the University of Hawaii and to the program, is a really stick-out to me. They seem like really good guys.”
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Johnson will be reunited with Tanner Cuff, a 6-7 wing who is transferring from the University of Evansville. Johnson and Cuff were teammates at American Fork High in Utah. As a high school senior, Johnson earned a 4-star rating and was ranked as the No. 53 prospect in the ESPN top 100.
Johnson committed to Oregon as an American Fork senior in 2019. That summer he began serving a two-year church mission in Columbus, Ohio. “It was during COVID, so it was difficult,” Johnson said. “It was interesting. It taught me a lot. I’m grateful I did it.”
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After a freshman year at Oregon, he transferred to Utah State. He redshirted in 2022-23, then started in 31 of 35 games for the Aggies the following season. He averaged 6.6 points and 3.1 rebounds while connecting on 34.2% of his 3s. He scored 19 points against TCU in the opening round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
It was from that game where his “Big Fish” nickname that he had since junior high gained popularity. The local Arctic Circle, a burger restaurant with 71 franchises in seven states, named a Swedish Fish-flavored concoction the “Big Fish Milkshake.”
Despite appearing in 30 games (starting 12) this past season, Johnson’s role diminished under his third USU head coach in three years. In entering the portal, he sought a program where he would have a more valued role.
Johnson’s pledge to UH will be his second biggest commitment this year. June 6 is the wedding day for Johnson and Audrah Radford, an outside hitter for Utah State’s women’s volleyball team.
