Utah Hockey Fans Are Perfect So Far
When the NHL was brought to Utah less than a year ago, all the standard questions that come with a new team would emerge.
Would they be competitive?
What would their mascot be?
Will the designated home stadium be suitable for games?
Will the city and the fans embrace them?
Despite being 38 games into their first 82 game season, most of these questions are still largely unanswered.
Utah can be competitive some nights (17 wins, 6 OT losses), and struggle on others (15 losses), like any young team trying to develop a rhythm.
So that is to be determined.
No mascot is decided upon yet, thus hence the Utah Hockey Club, and isn’t likely to be announced until the offseason.
The Delta Center was less than equipped to handle hockey in all it’s glory and is still filled with more “partial view” seats than any permanent NHL arena should have.
Even though renovations are planned that will bolster the hockey viewing experience in the coming years, it remains unanswered.
So out of all these questions, only one has been close to being checked off the list.
Will the city and fans embrace the team?
Based on recent attendance data released by PuckReportNHL AKA NHL News on x.com, yes, yes they will.
Out of 11,131 available seats, Utah has an average attendance rate of 100 percent.
That means on almost any given night the Delta Center, despite the 5-7-4 home record that the Utah Hockey Club have rolled out, the place is full.
Utah joins 5 other clubs with perfect fan attendance in Montreal, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Edmonton and Seattle.
Six teams decided a perfect attendance wasn’t enough and have percentages above 100 when considering things such as standing room, suites and the like.
King among them all is the Vegas Golden Knights averaging 17,910 people for 17,367 seats for a 103.13 percentage.
The worst team in the NHL for fan attendance this year per this data is the San Jose Sharks filling up slightly less than 80 percent of their 17,435 home.
As far as I can tell this data does not take Utah’s partial view seats into account, which very well could push them over that 100 percent mark.
Now, Utah does have the least difficult task of filling up a barn more than any other team as their 11,131 full view seats are still 4,094 less than the 2nd smallest venue in pro hockey, the Canada Life Centre of the Winnipeg Jets.
Even so, for a brand new team that has struggled at home, seeing the locals in full force is a great sign and a hope for what is to come as the arena reaches greater capacity over the upcoming years and as the team begins to be more competitive.
The start is strong, and hopefully the future is even better, like 103.13 percent better.
Utah takes the ice next on the road against the Dallas Stars tomorrow, the 4th of January at 6:00 mountain time.