We flew to SLC on Friday evening on a connecting flight through Phoenix. We'd only ever been to SLC one other time, and that was on our summer road trip in 2021 when we visited all 50 states in 9 months, so we'd never been to the SLC airport. Let me just say that it is one of the nicest airports we've ever been to and certainly one of the best in the U.S.!
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| the airport has a dinosaur skeleton in it, so that alone earns the airport high marks! |
The game was on Saturday afternoon and we were able to walk over to the arena from our hotel. This team relocated from Arizona; you may recall that we went to NHL Arena #39 back in 2023, when the Arizona Coyotes had to play in the hockey arena at Arizona State University because there was so much uncertainty about the team's future. Fast forward to the team being relocated to SLC and last season, playing under the name "Utah Hockey Club," before being named the Utah Mammoth!
The Mammoth were hosting the Carolina Hurricanes and therefore we didn't really have strong feelings one way or another in terms of the outcome of the game. Both teams had already secured playoff spots, so there wasn't the urgency or intensity that happens when teams are scrambling to get into the playoffs.
Between hockey and baseball, we've been to a lot of different professional sports facilities and some of them are great and some of them are anything but.
Delta Center was a fantastic fan experience!
All of the fans were very respectful and there were A LOT of Canes fans in attendance. Like a shocking number of Canes fans! But there was no yelling, no cursing, no drunken behavior, no pushing/shoving/almost-fist-fights...all things we've witnessed in other arenas that have terrible fans and are poorly managed (I'm looking at you, ALL THREE ARENAS THAT HAVE BEEN HOME TO THE ISLANDERS).
We loved seeing the Zammoth, which recently made its debut! Everything about the theme of the team, from the mascot, Tusky, to the motto, "Tusks Up!", is super fun and we truly had an amazing time at the game. We had great seats and were beside a couple who were Canes fans; we ended up chatting with them a little because the goalie for the Canes is a former Maple Leaf and we loved him when he played for Toronto! If I lived in the area, I would 100% become a Mammoth fan as a result of our experience at the game!
We lucked out with nice weather for walking around the city:
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| Utah is the Beehive State and one of the crosswalks was painted in this honeycomb pattern... so cute! |
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| went to this cute place for breakfast on Sunday |
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| we try to visit public libraries whenever possible when we travel and the SLC city library was amazing! |
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| you can go up onto the roof of the library for some pretty spectacular views! |
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| the library has bees! |
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| just gorgeous! |
Finally, the hotel we stayed at, The Grand America Hotel, was incredible! As we wandered around, the feeling of being in a fancy castle was palpable!
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| the courtyard was filled with tulips |
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| we had great views from our balcony! |
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| we left a little piece of Avalanche in SLC |
Our flight home was connecting through Denver and we originally had a layover of about an hour and forty minutes. However, our flight out of SLC was delayed, and before we knew it, our layover was down to about twenty minutes! Luckily the gate where we landed in Denver was very close to the gate we were leaving out of, so once we got off the first plane, we walked directly over to the gate, got in line, and boarded the second flight all within a matter of about ten minutes. It was a bit crazy and we were worried about getting home to pick up Avalanche from his dog hotel in the morning, but luckily everything worked out and we landed safely at Dulles and were back at our car at 1:30 am!
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| it was our first time flying Southwest since they switched from their well-established and much-loved-by-us select-your-own-seat system to assigned seating and it wasn't as awful as I had feared it would be... still miss the old ways, though LOL |
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| What a super fun weekend! |
Happy Tails to you!
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