MANALAPAN, Fla. — Chris Armstong pulls up a chair on the patio of the lavish Eau Palm Beach Hotel & Spa and takes in a breath of fresh sea air as waves from the Atlantic pool over the sand at a metronomic rhythm just 60 metres away.
He exhales audibly, takes a sip of coffee and embraces the serenity of the scene ahead of a conversation about how it’s felt to be figuratively running at full speed and on max incline since he was named president of hockey operations of the newly minted Utah Hockey Club five months ago.
Armstrong’s role as alternate governor of the franchise has provided this brief respite— this is technically a business trip to meet with the rest of the NHL’s Board of Governors — but brief is all it’ll be. The frenetic pace of guiding the NHL’s youngest team through its infancy will resume in less than 48 hours, and the work, which has already piled up sky high, is waiting for him.
But Armstrong isn’t sweating as he climbs through it. He and the other Utahns have already scaled their first face in record time, so looking up at the next one doesn’t feel too daunting.
Not that expanding hockey operations while speeding towards the next pivotal step in a rebuild, beefing up the brand, gunning for higher ticket and merch sales and overseeing major renovations to the Delta Center will be easy. It’s just that the experience Armstrong and his group has gained in bringing the Utah Hockey Club to life in the months since Ryan and Ashley Smith purchased the Arizona Coyotes has given them the confidence anything else can be achieved as quickly as it must be.
They promised the players they inherited the full NHL experience they were deprived of over the last two seasons of while playing at Mullett Arena, and the Smiths spared no expense to deliver it. That meant, among other things, transforming the Utah Olympic Oval into a temporary (but fully functional) NHL practice facility by building an NHL locker room, treatment areas, a video room, a workout complex and offices for coaches and the hockey staff over the weeks that followed making Tij Iginla the first-ever draft pick of the franchise.
What’s happened since — a rapid ascent towards becoming a high-grossing franchise in the league — is almost as incredible as what’s coming next.
There’s so much to do, and so little time to do it in.
But that’s par for the course.
“I see more of what we’re facing day in and day out as opportunity,” Armstrong says. “Our ongoing challenge is we’re constantly going to be playing catch-up because of the timelines we started on. Usually, you get a much longer runway to stand up a franchise. But we’ve embraced that as our source of focus because we know that we’re always going to have to push to catch up. We’re still going to be working on an accelerated timeline for everything we do, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Doing it already has made us realize how well we collaborate based on what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a small period of time, and it’s created a culture that will benefit us as we move through these challenges.”
It’s going to have to as they continue to build out hockey operations and oversee the construction of a brand new, state-of-the-art, permanent practice facility that’s ambitiously scheduled to open at the start of next training camp.
It’ll take another two to three years to revamp the Delta Center and optimize it for hockey while also creating an entertainment district outside the arena, but Armstrong said the $900-million government bond the franchise applied for has been granted and that the entire project is already “in the heavy planning phase.”
The Smiths have pledged upwards of $3 billion of their own money to execute it — an extension of their already-impressive commitment, which is resonating beyond the established Salt Lake community.
New citizens Clayton Keller and Alex Kerfoot — key players who experienced life with the now defunct and previously dysfunctional Coyotes before arriving with Utah HC — have been blown away.
“Everything they’ve done for us from the day they took over the team has been amazing,” said Keller in a pre-Christmas phone conversation. “Anything we’ve needed, from recovery to travel, has been top notch, and that’s a great thing to have. And their relationship with us as players and the way they treat people is amazing.”
Kerfoot, who spent four seasons as a member of the richest NHL franchise prior to landing in Arizona for the 2023-24 season, echoed his teammate’s thoughts, vaunting the Smiths as refreshingly earnest.
“To have ownership that is that open about everything, that wants communication from top to bottom, that wants to help us and work with us and hear what we need and what we want to know, it has been so great,” the former Toronto Maple Leaf said. “It’s still early going here, but what they’ve been able to do here has been incredibly impressive, and I think this ownership group is making this a place people will want to come play.”
Armstrong says engagement from the fan base has been another positive.
It’s been there since the start, with 12,400 people showing up to greet the former Coyotes upon their first visit to Delta Center in April.
As soon as season tickets went on sale, 34,000 requests came in. The team quickly sold 8,500 full-season passes, and other fans have been flooding through the doors for every game.
Obstructed views in a building tailored for basketball haven’t stopped any of them.
“We’re selling out the building every game,” said Armstrong. “The official number of unobstructed seats is 11,131, and we can flex up to another 5,000 single-goal-view seats. Depending on the vantage point, you may lose what’s directly below you, so you might not be able to see the slot to the goal on the end you’re on. But those seats are being utilized to bring people into games that want to experience the atmosphere and they’re being sold as single-game tickets at a reduced price. On games like opening night and right after thanksgiving when Edmonton came, we’ve been up over 16,000.”
The renovations will push it over 17,000 and eliminate all obstructed views.
There will be other changes, but not so many as to alter what’s already baked into the experience at the Delta Center.
Armstrong has been touring NHL rinks since the season began, taking notes along the way, and on a recent stop in Montreal, where he was both a hockey player and coach for McGill University before starting his career in sports marketing and talent management at Wasserman, he realized to what end the building in Salt Lake City already possessed an important quality.
“The Bell Centre is a great example of not being able to manufacture intimacy; it’s built in with how close every seat in the building feels to the ice,” Armstrong said. “Every view of the ice is a quality experience there and it feels like the fans are right on top of the action, and we have that built in already at Utah Jazz games. Our players see it in the configuration for hockey now. So that’s something we’re going to expand. It’s something we have already that we’re not going to sacrifice, and a lot of the planning for both teams is to make sure that intimacy is the centrepiece of what we’re building.”
On the theme of keeping what’s already in place, the debate on whether to maintain the Utah Hockey Club’s branding rages on in the front office.
Keller said if he had a vote, he’d opt for a name.
We posited to Armstrong it could be good business to turn the inaugural season jersey into a relic and collector’s item while creating a whole new buzz and merchandizing boon over something like The Utah Yetis ahead of Season 2.
But the club isn’t sure about taking that direction at this point.
And if it is, Armstrong certainly wasn’t letting on, aside from offering that it was highly likely the colour scheme would be maintained and that at least one of the jerseys ordered with NHL partner Fanatics will continue to display the state name on its front.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do, we don’t have a definitive answer,” he said. “Truthfully, we’re still very much in the middle of that process right now. We also want to balance that with not dominating the conversation of the momentum of our Season 1 story with what the future may or may not look like regarding the name and identity of the team. We want to be respectful to our fans and players to ensure the story remains about this season and what they’re trying to accomplish and the support we’ve received to this point.
“But I’m not going to sit here and say revenue isn’t a key focus to everything that we do. Of course it is. It’s just that when it comes to getting the identity right, it’s much more about just that and not what the revenue opportunities look like from inaugural season to Season 2. Our focus is really on getting things right. Then everything will follow.”
The approach is the same on the hockey front.
Armstrong estimated the team is 40 per cent through the rebuild that began in Arizona, with the off-season acquisitions of veterans Mikhail Sergachev, Ian Cole, Robert Bortuzzo, John Marino and Kevin Stenlund — and the in-season trade for Olli Maatta — driving a young, emerging nucleus led by Keller to the next level.
Ahead of back-to-back games with the Seattle Kraken and Edmonton Oilers to start this week, the team is 16-13-6 through 35 games and sitting four points out of the second wild-card position in the Western Conference.
Kerfoot feels at least part of that is attributable how the team has been received in the market.
He said that if he were selling a prospective free agent on playing for the Hockey Club, he’d be pointing to that, among other things.
“For starters, it’s pretty cool being a part of a new franchise,” the 30-year-old said. “Right now, we’re writing history. First game, first goal, first win, what we hope will be the first playoff experience—every step along the way is new, and that in itself is super exciting to be a part of. Also, the people here are really into sports, and that matters. It’s only the Jazz and us, but they’re so into it. There’s buzz around the team, there’s buzz in the city, the building is loud and sold out and a fun place to play, and the owner is not going to spare any expense.
“I’ve been to some different places, and when you’re a free agent and you’re signing, there’s certain things some guys want, and no team is going to check every single box. But for me, it’s an elite in-game experience, the building is great, the owners are going to do everything they can to make the players feel welcome and provide them with everything they need, and it’s been a great place to live.”
That last part means something coming from a player who spent the previous year in Scottsdale — a city Kerfoot estimated would’ve been a top-five destination for any player in the league.
For Armstrong, life with the Hockey Club in Utah has been riveting.
“It’s been a whirlwind in the best way,” the 49-year-old said. “I always say it’s very easy to get up in the morning. I’m definitely in my highest area of passion, and the people I get to work every day are extraordinary in their own right. Ryan and Ashley are amazing from an ownership perspective. I was very blessed to have had a very enjoyable career at Wasserman, and at other steps along the way. But I couldn’t see myself doing anything other than this now. I definitely feel I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
From a business perspective, much has already been accomplished under his watch.
“We’ve hit our targets,” Armstrong said. “I’ve been saying all along we’re confident we’ll be a top-20 team in revenue in the league; top-20 in ticketing, top-20 in partnership revenue, top-20 in overall revenue, and, based on how we’re pacing, all of that will be true. It’s a pretty good place to start.”
But this is just the start. Much more excitement lies ahead.
