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Originally Posted by Wigs
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I was Team Yeti to start with, but have warmed to Mammoth. I've heard it said that Coyotes works well with Utah as well, but that was when Meruelo was retaining those rights, so obviously Utah moved on to their own ideas. And it's probably a good idea to come up with your own new name anyway (and I think if a new team goes to Phoenix, there will be a debate about keeping Coyotes or jettisoning that baggage and starting fresh as well).
No way does Utah keep "Utah HC" after the first year. They are going to want to capitalize on a second round of merchandising with a new name in the 2nd year.
As for Delta Center renovation. I'm still not sold they go that route. I know Smith said he was presented with some plans on how to do it, but you just look at it in hockey configuration and I can't imagine how they fix those sightlines. They have to roll back those lower level seats 53 feet on each end and what they are left with is about 8 rows of seats and about a 30 foot high wall, and the upper tier overhangs the ice at both ends. The sides have enough space to be able to install a lift system that drops those seats down to ice level when the basketball seats are removed. Smith made a great speech at his opening presser about wanting to do right by downtown SLC, but I think when push comes to shove, he's going to look at his soon to be 35 year old arena and the difficult expense of fitting hockey in there, and head to the suburbs like he originally planned.