Utah! Utah! — The Long Road to the Mammoth

What got me into the NHL was the movie The Mighty Ducks. Then Disney went and founded an actual Mighty Ducks franchise in Anaheim, and I started watching a little. I can’t remember whether it was NHK, but somebody in Japan aired the occasional game back then. The Ducks had Paul Kariya, a star with Japanese roots, and I remember feeling a certain closeness to the team because of it.

Then, in 1997, the NHL staged its official season opener in Japan: Canucks versus Ducks. I suspect the whole point was to introduce Paul Kariya to a Japanese audience — but sadly, he didn’t make the trip. Still, the Canucks brought the Russian Rocket, Pavel Bure, and the Messiah himself, Mark Messier, while the Ducks brought Selanne. Japanese fans finally got a real look at genuine stars. I splurged on an expensive ticket for that one too, and went. Unfortunately, the actress Norika Fujiwara was sitting diagonally behind me, and I could not concentrate on the game.

The following year, the Winter Olympics came to Nagano, and I went to several hockey games.

Nagano in those days was extraordinary: visiting NHL players were simply out walking around town at night. I ran into John Vanbiesbrouck and several others on the street, and my excitement went through the roof. The number of stars who converged on Japan for those Games was absurd. Canada had Gretzky and Sakic; the Czechs had Hasek and Jagr; Selanne and Bure were back a year after the opener. It had effectively become an NHL All-Star gathering. I wore a Sakic jersey and cheered for Canada, though they came up short of a medal.

After that, the games stopped being broadcast in Japan and I lost my way in. Then, in 2024, Jazz owner Ryan Smith bought the Arizona Coyotes and announced he was launching an NHL team in Salt Lake City. Well — what choice did I have but to support them with everything I had, from Japan? The team started the 2024-25 season under the placeholder name Utah Hockey Club. Having drifted away from the NHL entirely, I naturally didn’t know a single player. A little research told me a certain Clayton Keller was an All-Star, so presumably he was the face of the franchise. And I had to watch. I looked into whether there was any way at all, and found that DAZN carries it in Japan without any fuss. I signed up for an annual pass that same day.

That was where my love of hockey caught fire again. And the atmosphere at that first home game — wasn’t it incredible? You could feel the soul of Salt Lake City rejoicing. I’m embarrassed to admit that my eye for hockey had gone completely soft; just following the puck was a struggle. But even I managed to find a special player: Dylan Guenther. First of all, he’s ridiculously good looking. The face. And his finishing is ferocious. I was sold on the spot. As the games went on, though, I discovered an even bigger favorite: Logan Cooley. Look at him fly across the ice! A kid’s face, and yet what a competitive streak! I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I designated Guenther and Cooley as My Guys and set out to buy a jersey — only to find that jersey prices have become absolutely outrageous. Over two hundred dollars! And with the weak yen, that’s roughly four times what I paid back when I last bought one! The shipping isn’t cheap either! So, painfully, I made myself pick just one. A placeholder-name jersey can only be bought for a single season, so I decided to get that one first. I ended up buying Cooley’s UHC jersey, plus an Inaugural Season puck and cap. My support infrastructure, operated from Japan, was now in place. That first year, I wore that jersey for every single game and cheered with everything I had.

The team missed the playoffs by a hair in year one, but my two guys performed more than well enough, and I was thoroughly satisfied. I also learned after the fact that the first player UHC ever drafted was the son of the great Jarome Iginla! I can’t wait to see him in real games. And then, after the Inaugural Season, we miraculously jumped to fourth in the draft lottery and landed Caleb Desnoyers. What a future is waiting for us! We have a traffic jam of young talent — but that is a happy problem to have.

The Utah Hockey Club placeholder had served its purpose, and in 2025 the team officially became the Utah Mammoth. Naturally I bought a new Mammoth Cooley jersey, cap and puck, and spent a second season sending everything I had across the Pacific. The team made the playoffs at last. We lost in the first round to Vegas, but I think the season showed more than enough of what’s possible. Watching the Final, though, drove something home: to compete for a championship, we lack the culture and the roster to close games out. And so this offseason we acquired Vincent Trocheck and Anders Lee. In those moves I felt the intent of Bill Armstrong — a front office lining up to win for real.

This doesn’t matter to anyone but me, but I have developed a condition in which hearing the Delta Center crowd chant “U-TAH! U-TAH!” brings me to tears. My alarm clock is a goal horn. That sound puts fire in my chest every single morning. I am Japanese through and through, and I cannot for the life of me explain how I ended up this way.

So — I can hardly wait for the season to start. Just as with the Utah Jazz, I’ll be behind the Mammoth with everything I’ve got.

The Mammoth get far less coverage than their play deserves. So let’s be the ones to make some noise: Mammoth Nation.