Utah ‘energized’ by fans in winning franchise’s 1st home Stanley Cup Playoff game

SALT LAKE CITY -- The puck slid slowly into the high slot, and the fans tensed with anticipation. MacKenzie Weegar took three strides from the right point, wound his stick blade over his head and fired a slap shot into the net at 12:59 of the first period.

Mayhem. 

The fans leapt from their seats. The goal horn sounded. The defenseman pumped a fist, banged on the glass and got mobbed by his teammates.

“I saw one fan when I banged on the glass, and we had a special moment,” Weegar said with a smile. “I’m not sure who that was, but I’m sure he’ll remember it along with myself. It’s exciting.”

As rock music blared, the fans roared, waved white rally towels and chanted.

“HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!”

“LET’S GO, UTAH! LET’S GO, UTAH! LET’S GO, UTAH!”

It was the Utah Mammoth’s first goal in their first Stanley Cup Playoff home game, and they went on to earn their first home playoff win and first playoff series lead. They defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 in Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round at Delta Center on Friday and pulled ahead 2-1 in the best-of-7 series.

“Obviously, the fans have been incredible ever since Day 1 when we showed up here, and it seemed like they took it to a whole new level tonight,” forward Lawson Crouse said. “We can start to use that to our advantage. They really energized us. I mean, I was looking up in the stands after the first goal and just seeing all the rally towels going, and just feeling the energy and the passion from them really give us that boost.”

This was yet another important milestone in Utah hockey history. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said as he flew to Salt Lake City to attend the game, he thought about “the journey of how we got here.”

The NHL Board of Governors voted to establish a new franchise in Utah on April 18, 2024, with the team to acquire the hockey assets of the Arizona Coyotes. Utah flew executives, coaches, players and staff members to tour their new home six days later.

Coach Andre Tourigny said he knew that day the NHL would thrive in Utah. As soon as the former Coyotes stepped off the plane, they were met by youth hockey players holding signs in the hangar. Fans filled Delta Center for a welcome event that night.

“That was a pretty amazing moment,” said Mammoth owner Ryan Smith, who also owns the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association with his wife, Ashley. “It was the greatest moment I’ve been to in sports, because it was literally a bet. I don’t think we had docs signed at that point. It was literally, ‘Hey, let’s see if Utah can show up for hockey,’ and Utah hasn’t not shown up every night since then.”

Utah has come so far in so little time. Known as the Utah Hockey Club in its inaugural season, the team practiced in a temporary facility. Rebranded as the Utah Mammoth this season, the team has a new, state-of-the-art practice facility -- plus a new mascot named Tusky, a hybrid of a Zamboni and a Mammoth called a “Zammoth,” and much more. 

“Everything they’ve done -- and you’ve heard me say this repeatedly -- has exceeded our highest expectations,” Bettman said. “If you want to know how to write a textbook on how to start a franchise in a community from scratch, nobody better than what Ryan and Ashley have been able to accomplish.”

The Vegas Golden Knights claimed Utah as part of their TV territory when they entered the NHL as an expansion team in 2017-18, and they created a lot of fans, helping lay the foundation for the NHL in the state. But now that they’re facing Utah in the playoffs, the Mammoth invited fans to trade Golden Knights jerseys for Mammoth jerseys Friday.

Hundreds lined up outside Delta Center before the event started at noon. Workers pulled new Utah jerseys from boxes and tossed Vegas jerseys into a bin. After about 90 minutes, the Mammoth declared they had exchanged all the jerseys they had available.

“As with everything else we have done, Utah showed up and exceeded our expectations,” Mammoth president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong said.

The Mammoth held a pregame party on the plaza outside Delta Center, introducing a new drumline and a new group of dancers. Three military helicopters flew from the Utah State Capitol over the arena.

Inside Delta Center, the atmosphere was as advertised. 

“We were so jacked up to play tonight,” captain Clayton Keller said. “I think even just warmups was an amazing feeling. You could tell that they were invested and they were super excited as well.”

The fans booed the Vegas lineup and cheered the Utah one. The drumline played “Thunderstruck.” In a nod to the Golden Knights’ famous pregame show, Tusky tapped a stick, and the ice crumbled under the Vegas logo. The fans waved their rally towels, and right after the opening face-off, they started chanting.

“LET’S GO, UTAH! LET’S GO, UTAH! LET’S GO, UTAH!”

“I took a quick look up coming onto the ice,” forward Dylan Guenther said. “That’s something I won’t forget, I think, first home game in the playoffs, seeing the towels, people standing. That was a cool moment.”

How loud did it get?

During a stoppage in the second period, Tusky coaxed the crowd to make noise, and the decibel meter reached an ear-splitting 112.

Guenther said the players couldn’t hear Tourigny calling out lines. One time, nobody went onto the ice, so he went even though he wasn’t supposed to. Tourigny said there was confusion two or three times in the period.

“I can be pretty loud,” Tourigny said. “The crowd beat me, no doubt about it. So, there’s a few things we did as a staff to get better during the game to make sure there was less confusion.”

The beauty of this is, Utah is still a work in progress. The team is up and coming. Delta Center is two phases into an ongoing renovation. The Winter Classic is coming New Year’s Eve, with the Mammoth hosting the Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. The game has so much room to grow here.

Smith is taking nothing for granted.

Asked when he knew the NHL would thrive in Utah, he said: “I don’t believe that I’ve felt that yet, because I feel like we have to earn it as an organization every single night. And I think we’ve earned it to have it tonight, but as an organization, we have to keep making it thrive. This is a living thing, and we’ve got to get better every single game. We’ve got to get better every single day.”

That said, it’s fun to enjoy all the milestones along the way.

“What we love about where we’re at is just the amount of firsts, the amount of firsts,” Smith said. “They just don’t get old.”