Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah Jazz did more than carve out a place in this city.

They became a Salt Lake City institution, continuing to draw sellout crowds long after Stockton-to-Malone eventually turned into a rebuilding team that very well could be going on year three of missing the playoffs.

Turns out there is room for more than one major professional team in town.

The arrival of the team formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes sparked enormous interest with more than 34,000 season-ticket deposits made in the first 48 hours after becoming available. And only 8% of those deposits for the Utah Hockey Club also were Jazz season-ticket holders, which means even more customers for Ryan and Ashley Smith, who own both teams.

“So we immediately became very, very bullish on the demand from the community,” said Chris Barney, Smith Entertainment Group president of revenue and commercial strategy. “Another really interesting nuance about that group is 63% of those people hadn’t even been to an arena event in a year. You don’t really get the chance in sports to cultivate a new audience.”

The Jazz, who moved to Salt Lake in 1979 after five years in New Orleans, created fans for the future by developing them when they were young through Junior Jazz. Barney said it’s the nation’s largest youth basketball program, and the idea is to create a similar legacy in hockey.

But the Utah Hockey Club plans to buttress existing programs rather than dictate the path of youth programs. The Utah Outliers junior team won championships the past three years and plans to expand its 17- to 20-year-old program with younger teams as it moves into a new 2,000-seat facility in Park City, Utah.

Having the NHL in the neighborhood, Outliers general manager and coach Paul Taylor hopes, will only increase interest among potential younger players.

“I think once the team starts, you’re going see a lot of interest, and kids are going to start choosing the hockey stick over a basketball or soccer ball or football,” Taylor said.. “… It just builds their dreams when the best players in the world come into your backyard and they’re part of your community fabric as your home team.”

Beyond cultivating a young fan base, there’s also the task of educating those who haven’t watched hockey much, if at all, but are curious.

There also could be those with a mild interest in the sport, having watched an occasional game on TV, but who don’t have a firm grasp on the difference between icing and offside.

“But we also know there’s hockey people here,” said Travis Henderson, senior vice president for broadcasting for the UHC and Jazz. “So (it’s) just striking that balance of teaching and elevating the game but not talking down to the hockey fans we know are here and have watched their whole lives. So it’s an interesting balance, but we’re aware of it.”

Utah games will be televised over the air and available through a streaming service that also includes behind-the-scenes content. Several streaming packages are available, including one that combines the UHC and Jazz.

The Utah Hockey Club is the shiny new toy, and the metropolitan area of more than 1.2 million people has already shown great enthusiasm for a team that played in Arizona State University’s 5,000-seat arena the past two years.

“I think the reaction has been about as good as anyone could expect,” longtime Salt Lake sports talk radio co-host Patrick Kinahan said. “This town is ready to explode to be a big-time sports town, and hockey gets them one step closer to that. I went to the first preseason game just to get a feel.

“It felt like it was (a) late-season Jazz game with the momentum of the team going to the playoffs.”

Utah has a young corps of players led by Clayton Keller and a defense upgraded with some offseason moves that included trading for Mikhail Sergachev. General manager Bill Armstrong has built mostly through the draft, and he is hesitant to forecast whether the team can make a legitimate push for the playoffs this season.

He prefers to stick with the day-to-day approach for Utah, which opens its season Oct. 8 at home against the Chicago Blackhawks.

“We are probably still the second- or third-youngest team in the National Hockey League,” Armstrong said. “That’s part of the rebuild. Some nights, you’re going to look like world beaters and win 9-0, and other nights, you’re not going to do that.”

There is a lot of competition for the attention of sports fans in the area beyond the NHL and NBA teams. BYU and Utah are Power Four Conference teams with passionate fan bases. Real Salt Lake of the MLS averages more than 20,000 fans.

How long the honeymoon lasts for the NHL team remains to be seen.

“I don’t really ever put a time stamp on it,” Barney said. “We’re in the middle of a 292-game sellout streak for the Jazz and we haven’t made the playoffs two years in a row. If you would have been at our last regular-season game against the Rockets this last season, you would have been like, ‘Are these guys both chasing a playoff spot for home-court advantage?’ Our fans are just incredible.”

But he also acknowledged the reality of how the bottom line can affects fans’ overall experience.

“There is something and our data shows this,” Barney said. “Hot dogs are warmer and drinks are colder when we win.”

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL

Utah Jazz fans received some positive news from head coach Will Hardy during a slew of media day press conferences on Monday.

One of the most pressing questions facing any team entering into a new season is health, and for the Jazz, things are no different. Especially after ending last season with an array of inactives across the roster to key players like Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, and Jordan Clarkson, it’s fair to ask who’s ready to take on the year ahead as the 2024-25 campaign looms less than a month away.

However, thankfully for this Jazz roster, Coach Hardy ensured on Monday that the team is fully healthy up and down the depth chart, saying that as far as he knows, everyone is ready to go.

It’s a great sign for the Jazz to have everyone ready to go from day one. Oftentimes, you see various teams around the league have one or two guys on the roster unable to suit up until a few weeks or months into the season, but in Utah, all 21 rostered players are 100%.

Action will ramp up rather quickly for the Jazz, as their preseason debut sits at the end of this week on October 5th vs. the New Zealand Breakers, and their regular season opener lies just over three weeks away with the Memphis Grizzlies scheduled to come to town on October 23rd for the first game of the year.

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Let’s face it: Utah is not a player in the 2024 presidential election. The number of electoral votes that it brings to the table — just 6 — is minimal.

I suggest, however, that Utah has the opportunity to loom large this November by casting its votes in favor of the nation’s first woman president. Why? Consider Utah’s history.

My Utah license plate reads “First to Vote, Utah Women 1870.” Sure, Wyoming recognized women’s right to vote earlier, but it was Utah women who cast the first ballots. Seraph Young, a young school teacher, holds the honor of casting the first vote by a woman in the nation on Feb. 14, 1870.

I must admit that when I moved to Utah in 1982, I was unaware of the significant feminist movement of 19th century Utah. It was through conducting research at the historical department at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and reading scholars such as Leonard Arrington for a book on early Utah schoolteachers that my eyes were opened to the tremendous impact and power of these early women.

One schoolteacher from Smithfield, Louisa Lula Greene Richards, was the first editor of The Woman’s Exponent, a newspaper dedicated to “The Rights of the Women of Zion, The Rights of the Women of All Nations” — initiated with the approval of Brigham Young. He preached in 1869, “We believe that women are useful, not only to sweep houses, wash dishes, make beds and raise babies, but they should stand behind the counter, study law or physics … and all this to enlarge their sphere of usefulness for the benefit of society at large.” He also advocated for women to become physicians.

Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon (1837-1932) took that advice, receiving her medical degree in 1880. Having worked at The Woman’s Exponent, she was also an ardent supporter of suffrage. Utah women lost their right to vote in 1887 but regained it in 1895 when vocal women such as Dr. Cannon advocated for politicians to make women’s suffrage part of the new state Constitution. When Utah achieved statehood, Dr. Cannon was the first to register to vote. She then ran as a Democrat for one of five state senate positions and won, even though one of the other candidates was her husband. Thus, she was the first woman elected to a state senate — another notable first for Utah.

During the run-up to the 2020 celebration of voting rights that included Utah’s 1870 landmark suffrage decision, the 19th Amendment of 1920 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I was privileged to lead with my colleague Sydney Peterson, Utah State University’s Year of the Woman celebration. Our goal was to tell the stories of Aggie Women, often unknown, who served as pioneers from the institution’s earliest days to pave the way for future leaders. Sarah Walker Eddy delivered a rousing speech on “Higher Education and Women” at the dedication of the Utah Agricultural College in 1890. When classes began, Miss Vendla Berntson registered as the first student.

The first African-American woman to graduate from a Utah college, Mignon Barker Richmond was a member of the Empyrean Club, a group of college women devoted to discussing current issues and problems. She went on to a distinguished career as an educator, civic leader and humanitarian.

Unfortunately, the perception of Utah outside the state is not about its early history of enfranchising women rightfully, nor about its status as electing the first woman senator. Too many people get their vision of Utah from media, various “wives” shows that hardly reflect reality. But data do not lie: Utah is routinely labeled as the worst state for women because of the few numbers of women leaders in politics and business and the widest wage gap.

On the upside, Dr. Susan Madsen, founder of the Utah Women & Leadership Project, leads a statewide social change movement titled “A Bolder Way Forward.”

How difficult will it be to change outsiders’ perspective of the Beehive State? This presidential election offers a unique opportunity. If Utahns, after researching the issues, choose to vote for the first female president — believe me — it will be major news.

I call on my fellow citizens and leaders at the highest ranks to weigh carefully the candidates for their character, compassion and integrity. Gov. Spencer Cox should reflect on an endorsement offered before the race was transformed with a different candidate, particularly after being made unwittingly complicit in the politicizing of the sacred space that is Arlington National Cemetery.

I was a beneficiary of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1971, that lowered the voting age to 18. I’ve not missed an election since. Engaging in the political process in an informed and civil manner is our right and responsibility.

Joyce Kinkead is distinguished professor emeritus at Utah State University, the 2013 Carnegie Professor for Utah and author or editor of over a dozen books, including “A Schoolmarm All My Life: Personal Narratives from Frontier Utah.”

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