Utah owner Ryan Smith said the Mammoth will capitalize on the date and time. Dec. 31 is a Thursday, so it leads into the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot planned,\u201d Smith said. \u201cGiven the time of the game, we\u2019re going to parlay that into a pretty special concert, obviously in the Delta Center that night, so people can come celebrate New Year\u2019s with us with a ball drop and everything else, which I think that\u2019s going to be exciting. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hope is that this is a whole weekend, that this is a version of like an All-Star Game where we come in and we can program and activate our state and show our state off, so people come in, they ski, they do it all, all weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can expect a weekend of full programming of events — sports, concerts, activities — that will be pretty special, and we\u2019re blown away to be able to kick it off with the Winter Classic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bettman was in Salt Lake City for Utah\u2019s first Stanley Cup Playoff game, with the Mammoth hosting the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round. The best-of-7 series is tied 1-1.<\/p>\n
The Winter Classic will celebrate the extraordinary progress since the NHL established a new franchise in Utah on April 18, 2024.<\/p>\n
Despite a tight timeline, the team bought the hockey assets of the Arizona Coyotes, built a temporary practice facility, completed initial renovations of Delta Center and played its inaugural 2024-25 season as the Utah Hockey Club.<\/p>\n
Then the team unveiled a permanent brand identity as the Utah Mammoth, opened a new practice facility and completed the next phase of renovations of Delta Center, which has been packed with loud, passionate fans again this season.<\/p>\n
Now the Mammoth will draw their largest crowd yet. Nestled between the mountains and downtown, Rice-Eccles Stadium sits on the campus of the University of Utah and seats more than 54,000 for college football.
\u00a0
\u201cEverything they\u2019ve done — and you\u2019ve heard me say this repeatedly — has exceeded our highest expectations,\u201d Bettman said. \u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Utah owner Ryan Smith said the Mammoth will capitalize on the date and time. Dec. 31 is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-604887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}