Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Ryan Smith didn't believe the number.
"These 800-plus employees that we've been able to bring in," Ashley Smith said, talking about the influx of new staff Smith Entertainment Group had to hire to help with the Utah Hockey Club.
That's when Ryan Smith jumped in: "I think it's 80 — 800 is a lot."
In what should come as no surprise, his wife was right. Since the new NHL franchise was announced last spring, SEG has made more than 800 new hires, including part-time workers.
And it sure seems that they are all needed.
It was fast approaching midnight at the Delta Center. It had been hours since the Utah Jazz had wrapped up a preseason win over the Houston Rockets, and it'd be hours more before the arena was ready for its next big event: the Utah Hockey Club's inaugural game.
Team store employees were busy swapping out No. 23 Lauri Markkanen jerseys for Utah Hockey Club hoodies and shirts, and sounds of machinery echoed through the arena bowl as the court was lifted off, revealing the ice sheet that lay underneath.
It was just the latest of what will be several late nights for the Delta Center crew.
The historic hockey game was the fifth event in six days — all featuring different setups. First, there was a concert and a Jazz game. Next was UFC 307, a much-appreciated day off (only after a concert was postponed, mind you) and another Jazz game. Then came Tuesday's behemoth production to open the NHL season.
On Wednesday, the Delta Center staff finally got a little bit of a break; well, at least there were no events.
That run was unique in some ways — the team store won't always be completely swapped out for hockey and Jazz games, to use just one example — but with the Utah Hockey Club as a new tenant, the Delta Center will be busy this season.
Not to mention colder.
"There will always be ice from October through the end of the season," SEG executive Jim Olson said. "What you have to do is learn how to operate all your other events with ice being down."
For non-ice events, an ice deck is placed over the frozen surface. That serves as a subfloor, allowing arena workers to put down the Jazz court ... or a UFC rink ... or a stage ... or anything else.
And we do mean anything.
"We actually had to do a dirt show over an ice deck," said Olson, adding that the ice's freezing system is underneath the concrete floor. "Once you cover the ice with the deck, you can put everything you want on it."
That's a good thing, too. Even with hockey adding at least 42 more nights this season, Olson doesn't see a reason for the Delta Center to cut back on the other events.
Disney on Ice, WWE Smackdown, Monster Jam, Professional Bull Riding (good thing they can put dirt over ice) and a plethora of concerts are all already on the schedule during the 2024-25 NHL/NBA seasons:
"We're really confident we're going to continue to maintain the number of shows and concerts that we've always had," Olson said.
He said there are two reasons for that: 1) Salt Lake City has become more and more of a must-play market — so acts want to come to Utah. 2) The organization is confident it can fit everything in.
"It's very rare where they'll say, this is the one date we have to play," Olson said. "They've got some flexibility in the days."
As for scheduling NHL and NBA games, Olson said that was a pretty smooth process. Utah is not the only place where two teams share a stadium, so working together was an old hat for the leagues.
There are no double-booked days this season — meaning a Hockey Club game in the afternoon and a Jazz one at night or vice versa — but Olson thinks that could come in the future. The organization just wanted to get some more experience before trying it.
"We'll make sure that we get through a year or two before we're probably addressing that," he said.
Olson said the numbers are evolving when it comes to how much staff is needed. SEG didn't need to double up everything since there was some synergy within the operations team, but there was an increase.
"This has brought on a bunch of new jobs for the state of Utah, and jobs where people get to be in live entertainment, professional sports," he said. "It's been a lot of fun."
This past summer, SEG added three new locker rooms (one for the Utah Hockey Club, an NHL visiting-team locker room and a new NBA visiting-team locker room) and updated the Utah Jazz locker room as well.
"Once you change your cabinets in your kitchen, you end up doing your whole kitchen," Olson said.
The hectic Delta Center schedule, though, will dry up in the spring.
Once the NHL and NBA seasons finish, construction will begin on the next phase of the renovation project — this time tackling one side of the arena bowl to improve the sightlines for hockey.
"There's gonna be a crane that sits on what would be the ice or the floor, and it's not going to move until the season starts again," Ryan Smith said.
Then the late nights will begin again.
