A day after unveiling the new name of Utah’s NHL team, owner Ryan Smith joined “The Pat McAfee Show.”
During the nearly 45-minute conversation Thursday, Smith and McAfee talked about both the Utah Jazz and the Utah Mammoth.
Here are five takeaways from Smith’s appearance on the show.
Ideas for the Utah Mammoth game-day experience
McAfee and his team shared multiple ideas with Smith that could be incorporated at the Delta Center and in the Utah Mammoth fan experience.
McAfee shared his idea for a hand sign for the team’s “Tusks Up” slogan. It resembles making the hang loose sign with both hands and resting your thumbs on each side of your chin.
“That’s a good one,” Smith said.
He later added, “That’s the first time I’ve seen that. That works.”
The idea of selling tusks that fans could drink out of was also proposed.
The biggest idea — literally — was to add four mammoth statues outside the arena — one for each letter of Utah.
But there’s a stipulation.
The biggest mammoth has to be at least 25 feet tall and the other three gradually get smaller, the show’s Boston Connor told Smith.
The idea came from the new Buffalo Bills stadium, where there will be three large bison statues currently scaled to 16-feet outside the stadium, which some fans consider too small.
“We’ve got one mammoth set up that we’re going to put out there,” Smith said.
He said they don’t know the size of it yet, but noted that he liked the idea of a “mammily,” or a family of mammoth statues.
On the identity of Utah Mammoth
Smith was asked about the identity he envisioned for the Utah Mammoth going forward. He tied it back to the team name and the attributes of a mammoth.
“(Michael) Kesselring on our team’s like 6-7. These things are as high as 14 feet tall. They go 25 miles an hour. We didn’t want the Snuffleupagus logo, whatever. We wanted something that was strong and powerful and like people could see that,” he said.
Why choose “Mammoth” — a singular name — instead of the plural “Mammoths” like most sports teams? The decision was intentional.
“You can see it’s united. It’s one. It’s not ‘Mammoths’. It’s ‘Mammoth,’ like we’re one group,” Smith said.
On the NBA draft lottery
The Utah Jazz have a 14% chance of securing the first overall pick in Monday’s NBA draft lottery. In the first round of the draft, the Jazz also have the 21st overall pick.
“It’s a pretty good draft. I think everyone is pretty focused on it. There’s a lot of teams gunning. There’s a lot of fanbases who all want No. 1. The Jazz have never really moved up in the draft, I think, in our history or had the No. 1. So, why not now? Why not us, right? Like I think it’s a good thing,” Smith said.
Smith was asked if he was worried that the Jazz might not get the first overall pick because the NBA doesn’t want projected first overall pick Cooper Flagg going to a small market.
Smith refuted the idea that Utah is a small market.
“You got a top-three tech economy. You got 7 million people coming in here to ski. We have nothing in common with small market. The only thing we have in common with it is people don’t move to Utah necessarily to live downtown in that urban environment.
“But you look at Park City, you look at where we are. We have 250,000 college kids within 90 minutes,” he said. “We have the No. 1 economy in the country with the lowest unemployment. It’s been that way. We’ve had a branding problem for a long time.”
The relationship between the Jazz and Mammoth
Smith said there’s a good synergy and collaboration between the Mammoth and Jazz.
Smith, Hardy and Lauri Markkanen were at a Utah Hockey Club game together last season when Utah’s Mikhail Sergachev dove in front of a slapshot.
The puck hit him in the head, and he was “kind of out,” Smith said.
Hardy was in disbelief that Sergachev would do that with Utah up 5-2 with six minutes left in the final period.
Markkanen explained to his coach that it didn’t matter because, “You got to get in front of the puck. You have to dive in front of the puck,” Smith recalled.
The next night, the Jazz beat the Dallas Mavericks.
After the game, Smith went into the locker room and saw Drew Eubanks going around to his teammates saying, “Hey, way to get in front of the puck, guys. Way to get in front of the puck.”
Confused, Smith asked Hardy what he did in film session.
“He’s like, ‘I just showed (Sergachev) getting in front of the puck,’ and he’s like, ‘All I’m asking you guys to do is get back on defense, right? No one’s being asked to get in front of a 90 mph puck,’” Smith said.
On extending Will Hardy
It’s been a busy week for Smith, the Mammoth and the Jazz.
On Monday, the Jazz announced the extension of head coach Will Hardy. The deal will keep Hardy in Utah through 2031.
On Thursday, Smith called Hardy “an incredible partner” and described his extension as “a really, really easy decision.”
“He was the youngest coach in the league when we hired him, and we’re growing up and we’re in a rebuild and we believe that as we kind of roll out of this rebuild that we want him to see a lot of fruits of the labor,” Smith said. “We like him more now than when we hired him and I think that’s a pretty cool spot, and fortunately enough, he likes us because he’s definitely a coach that would have a lot of demand out there.”