Utah
Utah Hockey Club fandom forces allegiance change for Orem restaurant owner
OREM, Utah — For a good decade, Bam Bams BBQ in Orem has been a haven for NHL fans of a certain stripe. However, there’s been a dramatic change, since the Utah Hockey Club launched its first season.
“Bam Bam, my whole nickname Bam Bam comes from Bam Bam Cam Neely,” said Cameron Treu, the owner of the bar-b-que restaurant. “Yeah, even the name has hockey in it, most people think it’s the Flintstones, but nope. One of the famous Boston Bruins.”
To say Treu is a hockey enthusiast is an understatement: his office is full of memorabilia.
First, a Kings fan when Gretzky arrived in Los Angeles, Treu got behind the Blackhawks when he moved to Chicago in 2002.
“You could go to a game for 20 bucks, and so I started going to practice in the afternoon, and once you have that connection with the team again, it’s pretty hard not to follow them,” he said.
For 21 years, Treu was true to the Blackhawks. But that all changed when the news broke that the NHL was coming to Utah. Even the Blackhawks banner that had been on the restaurant’s dining room wall came down after a ten-year run, a moment he shared on social media.
“There’s been a few people, it was just, ‘Oh, man this pains me, this pains me to see,’” said Treu. “And I am like, look I am not throwing away the flag, it’s still back in my office, but it has to go.
“We’re a Utah Hockey Club establishment now.”
Hard to argue with that when you consider Cameron has already fed the Utah Hockey Club. He provided his bar-b-que to the team following the team’s final pre-season game a couple of weeks ago, and he wouldn’t mind doing it again.
“Yeah, I would definitely take that title, the official bar-b-que of the Utah Hockey Club, that would be great,” he shared. “I am sure I’d have to pay for it, but we can chat,”
In chatting about changing team loyalty, Cameron says when the Utah Hockey Club opened the season against the Blackhawks, there was only one team he was rooting for.
“Having a team in Utah, I mean done,” he exclaimed. “I love the Blackhawks, still cheer for them any day they’re not playing us. I mean we have an NHL team, that’s crazy.”