Background and establishment History of ice hockey in Salt Lake City Prior to the arrival of the NHL, Salt Lake City's ice hockey history involved multiple minor-league franchises. The first team to call the area home, the
Salt Lake Golden Eagles, played 25 seasons across the
Western Hockey League (WHL),
Central Hockey League (CHL), and
International Hockey League (IHL) from 1969 to 1994. Playing out of the
Salt Palace for their first 22 seasons and the then-new
Delta Center for their final three, the Golden Eagles won three
Adams Cup championships in the CHL and two
Turner Cup championships in the IHL, before ultimately being sold and relocating to
Auburn Hills, Michigan, as the
Detroit Vipers after the
1993–94 IHL season. After just one season out of ice hockey, Salt Lake City received another IHL franchise in 1995, as the reigning Turner Cup champion
Denver Grizzlies, having been replaced by the newly relocated
Colorado Avalanche of the NHL, relocated to the Delta Center for the
1995–96 season as the Utah Grizzlies. The Grizzlies spent two seasons in Salt Lake City proper, including a second consecutive Turner Cup championship in 1996; notably, the Cup-clinching game 4 of the Turner Cup Finals saw an attendance of 17,381, at the time the largest single-game attendance in minor-league ice hockey history. The Grizzlies later moved to the newly constructed
E Center (since renamed the Maverik Center) in the suburb of
West Valley City for the
1997–98 IHL season, and joined the
American Hockey League (AHL) in
2001 alongside five other surviving IHL franchises upon the latter's collapse. However, the Grizzlies voluntarily suspended operations for the
2005–06 season, before being sold to
Dan Gilbert, the owner of the NBA's
Cleveland Cavaliers, and relocating to
Cleveland, as the
Lake Erie Monsters (later Cleveland Monsters) for the
2007–08 season. The AHL iteration of the Grizzlies were subsequently replaced by a relocated
ECHL franchise
of the same name; the franchise had most recently played in
Lexington, Kentucky, as the
Lexington Men O' War but had become dormant after the
2002–03 ECHL season. The new Grizzlies began play out of the E Center in
2005, immediately after their AHL predecessor had gone dormant, and have played 19 seasons in the ECHL since. However, the franchise has been comparatively unsuccessful; although they have missed the playoffs only four times, they have won just one division championship and no conference championships, only having reached the conference finals twice. In September 2025, over a year after the Mammoth's arrival, the Grizzlies were sold to an ownership group based in
Trenton, New Jersey; the
2025–26 season will be the franchise's last in Utah before moving to Trenton. Delta Center previously hosted multiple
Los Angeles Kings preseason games as part of the NHL's
Frozen Fury series. However, the arena was not considered well suited to host ice hockey permanently, owing to poor sightlines and broadcasting capabilities. Maverik Center and
Peaks Ice Arena in the suburb of
Provo, hosted the
ice hockey tournaments at the
2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which featured NHL players. Salt Lake City is also the host city for the
2034 Winter Olympics.
Establishment of the team , where the Mammoth play their home games Salt Lake City initially emerged as a potential NHL destination in June 2023, with rumors regarding the
Arizona Coyotes' potential relocation spreading after the failure of the
New Tempe Arena referendum. Six months later, in January 2024,
Ryan Smith, owner of the NBA's
Utah Jazz and co-owner of
Major League Soccer's
Real Salt Lake, petitioned the NHL to begin the process of expansion to
Salt Lake City. Discussions to bring an expansion team to the city were revealed to have been underway since early 2022, with the
Utah State Senate passing tax legislation in February 2024 to support a new ice hockey-capable downtown arena proposed by Smith; the only condition asked by the Senate was that any potential team be branded "Utah" to honor the state in general, as opposed to any branding using Salt Lake City. On April 13, 2024, it was reported that, with the NHL's permission, the Coyotes were making efforts to relocate to Salt Lake City following concerns about an indefinite timeframe on a new arena and the effects of continued play at the 4,600-seat
Mullett Arena. The deal became official on April 18 after the NHL Board of Governors granted an expansion franchise to Utah using the Coyotes' hockey assets. While the deal was reported in the media as a $1.2 billion "sale" of the Coyotes, it is in reality two separate transactions in which $1 billion is being paid by the NHL to
Alex Meruelo for the Coyotes franchise while Smith is paying a $1.2 billion expansion fee to the NHL's other owners. The $200 million difference is thus in effect a
de facto relocation fee to be shared equally by the other 31 NHL clubs. According to Smith, the team sold more than 11,000 season-ticket deposits in the four hours after going on sale, with 6,000 sold in the first two hours. The team was formally introduced at the Delta Center on April 26, with over 12,000 fans attending a welcome celebration featuring players and coaches. On May 6, the Smith Entertainment Group announced that a practice facility would be built for the team in the nearby suburb of
Sandy, Utah, which had its groundbreaking ceremony on August 12. On June 13, the NHL announced that the sale of the franchise had officially been completed and that the team would be known as "Utah Hockey Club" for their inaugural season.
Inaugural season and early years (2024–present) ,
Logan Cooley, and
Dylan Guenther line up for a faceoff during Utah's first preseason game in September 2024. On June 17, Utah made their first official player signing, with former Coyotes third-round pick Noel Nordh signing his three-year, entry-level contract. This was followed just under two weeks later by
their first NHL entry draft, where they selected
Kelowna Rockets forward
Tij Iginla as their first-ever draft pick at 6th overall. Utah played their first preseason game on September 22, 2024, defeating the
St. Louis Blues 5–3 in a neutral-site matchup played at
Wells Fargo Arena in
Des Moines,
Iowa. On September 23, Utah played their first home preseason game at the Delta Center, defeating the
Los Angeles Kings 3–2. On October 4, Utah named forward
Clayton Keller as its first
captain in franchise history. On October 8, the team defeated the
Chicago Blackhawks 5–2 in its first regular season contest, with
Dylan Guenther scoring the first goal. The team's first season ended with a record of 38–31–13, placing them sixth in the
Central Division, but ultimately out of playoff contention. In a more successful second season, Utah clinched the first wild card spot in the
2026 Stanley Cup playoffs, earning their first playoff berth in franchise history. During that season, Utah became the first team in NHL history to play the full 82-game season without any shootouts since that form of tiebreaker was adopted in 2005. ==Team identity==