StickShift
In a pickle 🥒
A quick search shows the the population of the SLC metro area (including suburbs like Provo and Ogden) is 2.7M people.I imagine hockey will sell out initially in Salt Lake City, because of the novelty and the fact that the only other major league sport in town are the NBA Utah Jazz.
If Wikipedia is to believed, the population of Salt Lake City proper is about 227,000.....and if you include all the suburbs in a 120 mile radius, it tops out at just over 1.24 million. That makes it the 126th largest market in NA. Along with Winterpeg and Raleigh, it would rank as one of the smallest NHL markets.
I can't imagine that Mormonville was the first choice of Bettman and the NHL governors. But I guess the Jazz owner was the only guy on the horizon with a spare billion dollars or so lying around. And the opportunity to put the 'disaster in the desert' behind them was too good to pass up.
And incredibly they haven't ruled another return to Phoenix in the next five years. Seems obvious the owners are addicted to bloated expansion fees, so the watering down of NHL hockey will continue unabated.
Which is remarkably similar in size to the Vancouver-Surrey metro area (2.6M people).
To put it bluntly, SLC is an affluent mostly-white city with a winter sports culture. It’s the NHL’s prime demographic minus the rich hockey-history.
I would imagine the franchise as another ‘Colorado Avalanche’. If they have success sooner than later they will be quickly endeared.