The Utah Hockey Club will officially be playing games in its new home state.
The team opened a development camp in Park City on Monday, hosting players selected in last weekend's 2024 NHL Draft and the team's top prospects. General manager Bill Armstrong has also been busy re-signing and acquiring free agents, including bringing back last year's leading scoring defenceman Sean Darge and signing Stanley Cup-winning free agents forward Kevin Stenlund (Florida) and defenceman Ian Cole (Vancouver).
Ryan Smith, who purchased the Arizona Coyotes players and staff with his wife, Ashley Smith, earlier this year to create a new franchise in Salt Lake City, said Utah was a winter sports community that needed an NHL team, and now that team is here, with Park City's green slopes serving as the perfect backdrop.
“Coming to Park City and feeling the cold air in the mornings and evenings is just incredible,” Armstrong said at a news conference at the Hotel Park City alongside Durji and Andre Turini.
The state welcomed the franchise to Las Vegas, where a large crowd turned out at an introductory event in April and more than 30,000 season-ticket deposits were made, and Smith told reporters gathered in Las Vegas for the draft that the Delta Center would be “sold out” this year.
Armstrong said growing the sport in the NHL's newest market requires two things: ice rinks and winning.
“The biggest thing is we can grow as a team and win,” Armstrong said. “That inspires a lot of people. That's the first part. Building the rink is probably the second part.”
Armstrong was referring to a practice facility planned for The Shops at Southtown in Sandy, which the team said in a news release will “accommodate area hockey programs and provide ice time for youth and amateur hockey and recreation.”
“Just providing a rink would have a huge impact on the hockey community,” he said. “Building a rink and bringing an NHL team here would inspire kids to play hockey, and we're totally supportive of that.”
“The great thing about hockey players is that 99 percent of them are great people who love giving back to their community.”
Darge, who joined Arizona after playing two years with the Los Angeles Kings, said he grew up in Toronto and was inspired by the little things, like bumping fists with hockey players coming off the ice.
“Having pride as hockey players and as a hockey team is really important to our group,” Darge said. “As part of the community, inspiring the younger kids and inspiring the people as a whole to aspire to greatness is really important. It'll be really cool to see the changes over the next few years, how the state and the city respond.”
Turini added: “We have a chance to make history. You never get a second chance to make a good first impression, so we want to go for it.”
Utah Hockey Club Development Camp Roster
The roster includes two first-round draft picks from the University of Utah last week in Las Vegas (Tizi Iginla and Cole Beaudoin), as well as first-round draft picks from the previous year in Dmitry Simashev and Daniil Butt (2023 draft) and Maverick Lamoureux (2022 draft).
A free practice session open to the public will be held at the Delta Center on Friday at 1 p.m.
forward: Owen Allard, Sam Baugh, Cole Beaudoin, Daniil Butt, Jonathan Castagna, Will Gavin, Vortec Hradec, Tiji Iginla, Sam Lipkin, Tanner Radke, Mikko Matjicka, Jacob Newcomb, Reggie Newman, Noel Nord and Gabe Smith.
Defenceman: Gregor Beever, Alex Cech, Artyom Duda, Terrell Goldsmith, Justin Kipkey, Maverick Lamoureux, Thomas Lavoie, Matthew Morden, Will Skahan, Dmitry Simashev, Cal Thomas, Viti Vaisanen.
Goalkeeper: Michael Hrabal, Rasmus Korhonen, Carsen Masser, Melker Thelin, Anson Thornton.
