For Trevor Lewis, growing up as a hockey player in Salt Lake City meant he had to scrounge for every bit of ice he could find — there just weren’t very many rinks.
Now, when he returns to his hometown, he has the same problem for a different reason.
“Now when you come back, it’s hard to find ice time even for me. There’s a lot of kids coming up, getting scholarships and stuff like that,” he said in a 2025 interview ahead of the lone regular-season NHL game he was able to play in Utah, the sixth-to-last regular-season game of his career.
The Utah Mammoth announced Tuesday morning that Lewis is joining the group in charge of growing youth hockey in the state. He has joined the organization as a youth and amateur hockey ambassador, as well as a video scout.
Lewis is one of the few Utahns to make it to the NHL, where he enjoyed 17 seasons and more than 1,000 games between the Los Angeles Kings, Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets. He won the Stanley Cup with the Kings in both 2012 and 2014, and he brought it back to his home state both times.
“Being able to tap into the mind and championship experience of someone who cares so personally and so deeply about the continuous growth of hockey in Utah, and who knows what it would mean to bring a Stanley Cup to the fans here, is both a rare opportunity and a natural fit for us,” said Mammoth president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong in a press release.
One of Lewis’ first tasks was to accompany the Mammoth’s rookie team to San Jose for the Rookie Faceoff, where they’re currently 1-1-0, with one game remaining — coincidentally, against the Kings, the team with which he played 14 of his NHL seasons.
Before it became clear that the Arizona Coyotes would move to Salt Lake City, Lewis never expected his hometown to get an NHL team. He never doubted, though, that it would be a good fit.
“It was kind of a shock,” he recalled of the moment in an April 2025 pregame interview. “I didn’t think it would ever happen, especially while I was playing. It was a little bit of a shock, but I knew the city would be on board right away.”
Now, one of his tasks is to help others fall in love with the game the way he did. At this time, the Mammoth are prioritizing their efforts to get as many kids as possible to start playing the sport, rather than investing into the high-level hockey scene.
That said, there’s a strong possibility that these efforts will eventually lead to many more Utah natives playing in the NHL — and potentially even surpassing Lewis on the leaderboards.
