Andy Larsen: Utah Hockey has a head start on the Jazz. Here’s what the club needs to really take root

On June 9, 1979, The Salt Lake Tribune announced the arrival of the NBA to our residents.

“Now We Has the Jazz,” the front-page headline read.

But I’m not sure we has’d a sense of what we were doing (certainly not from a grammatical point of view, at least) or what the Jazz would mean for the state.

This week, we opened a new chapter of sports in Utah. And just like when the Jazz first arrived, there are going to be a sizable portion of Utahns who don’t really know what this whole thing is all about.

At times, that might include the operators of the team.

“There’s just times when, especially in hockey, we’re learning a lot as we go,” team owner Ashley Smith said.

The Jazz certainly found their learning curve steep when they moved here 45 years ago. It took five years for the team to make the playoffs in Utah; attendance averaged under 10,000 fans per game in the meantime. It’s clear that the Utah Hockey Club now is in a better spot competitively and financially than the Jazz were then.

But there’s a difference between surviving and thriving — a difference between simply existing in a community and taking root in it.

That’s the path that the Jazz took in the ‘80s and ‘90s. In order to take that leap, the Jazz required ambassadors who opened the game to a wider audience. Frank Layden certainly knew that, playing the entertaining promoter role from his head coach’s chair. It also required hardcore fans who insisted upon their own culture — like those who played instruments in the jazz band that annoyed opponents in the early days of the Salt Palace.

That path is now the one the Hockey Club must embark on in order to truly matter to Utahns.

To be sure, first measures towards that effort were on display Tuesday at an inaugural game that took on every bit of self-evident historical importance that the Smiths hoped it would. The day’s first TV interview done by the club was done at 4:45 alongside the Delta Center ice, while coach André Tourigny’s postgame press conference didn’t happen until 11:30 at night.

In between:

• NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the Smiths spoke outside the arena at noon, in an unusual news conference that was attended by dozens of local politicians. It was also open to cheering fans. The theme: thanking the powers that be who worked hard to make this event happen. Commissioner Bettman gave shoutouts to the mayors of “the county of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake City itself,” to the president of the Senate, and the Smith Entertainment Group. Unusually for Bettman, who is traditionally booed by every other fanbase in the league, the commissioner received cheers for helping to deliver the NHL to Utah.

• At 2 p.m., ESPN’s NHL show began its national broadcast just outside the arena, with the new Utah Hockey Club puck statue, Jazz note statue, and mountains as a backdrop. Its hosts, including hockey legends Mark Messier and P.K. Subban, spared no opportunity to note the parallel between the Hockey Club’s first game against the Chicago Blackhawks and the Jazz’s NBA Finals series against the Chicago Bulls.

• Some of the team’s players walked a blue carpet into the Delta Center around 5 p.m., after being dropped off on the corner of 300 West and South Temple, as rows of fans five or six deep welcomed them to their first game.

• The Utah Department of Transportation shut down 300 West for a fan fest and concert, held on the street. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has been the No. 1 song in America for 13 weeks this year; he sang it three separate times in a 30-minute window. In his defense, at least two of those were for the benefit of the crowd on national television. Later, that stage turned into the television for a watch party for 1,000-2,000 fans who didn’t have tickets for the game but wanted to come out for the event; 16,020 attended the game.

• Jazz star forward Lauri Markkanen — thanks to his Finnish homeland, a natural skater — brought out the game’s commemorative puck, in a nod to the Jazz’s fanbase in the building.

Then the real puck dropped.

Chants of “Let’s Go Utah” (clap clap clapclapclap) immediately rang out, and were repeated at least twice per period. Other indications that Utah’s fans were really getting into the action followed: the desperate oohs and ahs of goal-scoring chances, the rally towels that followed goals, the chanting of the names of “Spicy Tuna” and “Durzi” when both got into more than their fair share of fracas.

Lines grew out of even an expanded team store at the Delta Center, as fans rushed to get their hands on merchandise. The team’s lone preseason game at the arena garnered $160,000 in revenue for the team on merch sales alone, ranking second in Delta Center history for a single night; the regular-season opener undoubtedly surpassed this total.

But perhaps there was no more important sign of passionate fan engagement than a timeout Jumbotron camera moment, when two friends poured their $15 beer into their shoe and chugged out of it. That moment, more than any other, was the one that gained Utah’s crowd respect from national hockey fans on social media. Of course, the 5-2 win also helped.

The truth is that hockey has always been a bit of a counter-culture sport in the states — open to everyone, for sure, but maybe not always embraced by the cool kids. Down below the border, it’s always been a bit of an underdog of a sport, the smallest of America’s Big 4.

Hockey fans, as a result, tend to be a bit hardcore.

So as this big opening day arrived, Utah’s grand powers of machination — the Smiths, the politicians, even UDOT — sought to make this moment hit for as wide of an audience as possible.

It meant just as much, or perhaps much more, to Utah’s hockey fans. Those are the folks that have largely lied low for decades, spending time in the Maverik Center or in the comfort of their own homes, simply dedicated to the sport they love. It’ll be those fans that serve as the Hockey Club’s hardcore base — maybe less bluesy than the early Jazz’s, but a bit more shoesy.

For the first group, now they has the Utah Hockey Club.

For those who desperately wanted this, though? Now they have hockey.

Tuesday’s events, to their credit, resonated for both.

May that root continue to grow for the decades to come.