Many in that record crowd came because they'd watched Salt Lake hockey for 25 seasons. Many others of the 14,144 came because it would likely be the last time they could see their first-ever live pro hockey game in Utah.
That melancholy crowd got together with an awful Golden Eagle team that played like champions for one final time at home to produce one last magical night on ice on April 6, 1994, in the Delta Center - a 5-4 shootout Eagle victory that culminated in a bittersweet New Year's Eve-style celebration.Kevin Cheveldayoff was on the ice on that last terrible/wonderful night. "It was a real emotional time," the former Eagle defenseman remembers, recalling "tears of sorrow for a tradition almost lost."
Lost for 15 1/2 months.
And now, the puck is back.
Cheveldayoff, now an assistant coach for the International Hockey League's 1994-95 Turner Cup-champion Grizzlies, looks forward to the irony that will happen in early October, when the championship banner is raised in the Grizzlies' name . . . in the Delta Center.
Cheveldayoff and his old Eagle teammates finished last in the IHL in the tumultuous 1993-94 season. Ultimately, the Salt Lake franchise was sold to Detroit, and Chevy and some of his fellow New York Islanders farmhands transferred to an expansion franchise - the Grizzlies, in Denver - where they went from last to first in one season.
And now some of those Islander properties, plus an impressive core of skillful free agents, will bring that IHL title, that banner, that cup, to Utah to defend.
It's the Utah Grizzlies from now on.
That was made possible by Tuesday afternoon's unanimous vote of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, which chose to channel $7 million of its funds for the 2002 Olympics toward a 10,000-seat arena to be built at I-215 and 3500 South in West Valley City. That arena will be home to the Grizz once it's finished, probably in two years.
Grizzlies owners Dave Elmore and Donna Tuttle had pledged to bring their team to Utah if the West Valley arena was built, and Tuesday's SLOOC vote set that plan into motion.
And none too soon. The IHL demanded an answer about their 1995-96 location from the Grizzlies by Tuesday afternoon.
Elmore told the Deseret News that had the SLOOC decision been delayed or been unfavorable, he would still have had to inform the IHL by the end of the business day Tuesday where he would move - probably San Antonio or San Diego - even though he hadn't visited either alternative site in weeks.
When Tuesday's vote came, said Elmore, he felt great relief. "We'd put all our eggs in this basket," he said, noting many intense weeks of negotiations, meetings and fact-finding tours.
Elmore said he'd begun to get emotional Monday night as West Valley City held a heavily attended candlelight vigil on the proposed arena site. He said he worried when organizing committee chairman Frank Joklik began talking about the original plan to make the arena-funding decision later this year, "but I was pleased at the end of his presentation," Elmore said.
"The high was when the vote was cast," he said.
There were other highs later Tuesday as the Grizzly contingent raced to become Utahns as quickly as possible: Their negotiations for a two-year Delta Center lease progressed, and they were able to submit a final list of possible playing dates to the IHL (Friday, Oct. 6, is a possible home-opener; league play begins Sept. 29, and the Grizzlies will open on the road.) One of the best things, said Elmore, was when general manager and coach Butch Goring informed him that he would remain with the Grizzlies, that he withdrew his name from consideration for coach of the NHL Los Angeles Kings.
Goring immediately began calling players, letting them know their new address would, indeed, be in Utah. He can begin signing some free-agent players now - he'd probably sign about six new players, he added.
The Grizzlies will move about seven or eight front-office people to Utah from Denver, where the organization succeeded wildly after seven other failed pro hockey attempts in that city. The Grizzlies drew 12,000 average in the regular season, 14,000 in playoffs.
One not making the move is team president Bernie Mullin, whose wife and children have strong Denver ties.
He is succeeded by Tim Mouser, who held a similar position with the Elmore-Tuttle Tallahassee Tiger Sharks of the East Coast Hockey League.
Mouser said he expects to bring the team's executive secretary, at least one corporate sales person plus a support sales person, "our computer/creative guy and a couple of telemarketers."
Elmore said that group will blend with staff hired in Utah, and they'll all work with the philosophy of other Elmore-owned clubs (five baseball plus Tallahassee) that gives fans enjoyable, wholesome, affordable, nonstop entertainment in the arena and a deep commitment from players and staff to community involvement off the ice.
Players are expected to devote time to fans and community. Goring calls it "touchability."
During the West Valley/Grizzly presentation to the SLOOC, Goring introduced Mike MacWilliam, a rugged Grizzly forward who recently earned the IHL's trophy for outstanding community service. That's an award that usually goes to an executive, Tuttle noted. MacWilliam involved himself with the Denver Rescue Mission, Aurora Police DARE program and Denver's Safe House for Battered Women, among others. MacWilliam said Grizzly players spoke to more than 250,000 school children in their one season in Denver.