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  "path": "/sports/2026/05/24/utah-mammoth-stanley-cup-playoffs-hockey-fans-follow-team-deseret-news-poll/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-25T03:20:05.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.deseret.com",
  "tags": [
    "It’s not easy building a fan base or a playoff team. Here’s how the Mammoth did both",
    "A December 2024 Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll",
    "Mammoth players share their 2025-26 highlights",
    "Winter Classic coming to Salt Lake City"
  ],
  "textContent": "Kimber Dixon went all-in on the Utah Mammoth this year.\n\nThe 32-year-old married mother of two followed every game during the regular season. She was elated when the team made the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since moving from Arizona in 2024.\n\nLike hockey players, Dixon had her own superstitions. She donned her Mammoth jersey on playoff game days. She wore a Mammoth bracelet and earrings. She painted her nails Mammoth blue. Her husband, Davin, and kids knew she would be hunkered down each night Utah battled the Vegas Golden Knights. She cursed the Knights and hoped and prayed for the Mammoth.\n\n“I was very, very invested,” she said.\n\nDixon was not alone.\n\n### Watching the playoff run\n\nFour in 10 Utahns very or somewhat closely followed the Mammoth in their first-round playoff matchup, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.\n\nThat’s an encouraging number for the up-and-coming team that didn’t exist in Utah just two years ago. Clearly, the NHL has found a home in Salt Lake City.\n\n“We have unbelievable fans and I am just so excited for them to get to experience a playoff run,” Chris Barney, president of revenue and commercial strategy for SEG, told the Deseret News ahead of the playoffs. “... It’s going to be an incredible catalyst and experience driver for the entire community.”\n\nThe run didn’t last as long as fans had hoped, with Vegas eliminating Utah 4-2 in the best-of-seven series. But it provided a taste of things to come should the team continue its upward trajectory.\n\nIt’s not easy building a fan base or a playoff team. Here’s how the Mammoth did both\n\nAccording to the poll, 12% of Utahns followed the Mammoth in playoffs very closely, 29% somewhat closely, 19% not very closely and 39% not closely at all.\n\nMillennials like Dixon were the most invested, with half of those surveyed saying they very or somewhat closely followed the team. Gen Zers were a close second. Baby boomers were the least interested.\n\nPlayoff fandom really ramped in urban parts of the state where 62% of residents kept a close eye on the team.\n\nMen at 51% followed the Mammoth playoff run more closely than women at 32%, per the survey.\n\nMorning Consult conducted the poll of 802 Utah registered voters May 15-18. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.\n\nSmith Entertainment Group, which owns the Mammoth, declined to comment about the survey results.\n\nA December 2024 Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll gauged fan interest in what was then the Utah Hockey Club a couple months into its inaugural season. It found a quarter of Utahns were very or somewhat closely following the team. The survey also found 30% are not following closely and 45% not at all.\n\n### Romancing the puck\n\nDixon, of American Fork, said her grandpa, who’s not big on hockey, wondered how a stay-at-home mom with an 8-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son became a passionate Mammoth fan. For her, it started with a hockey romance novel by Canadian author Rachel Reid.\n\n“It gripped me. I want to know more about what hockey actually is and how it actually works,” she said. “You could just tell the way that she wrote it that she loved hockey.”\n\nThat happened about the same time the Utah Hockey Club became the Mammoth, so Dixon adopted the team as her own. She then took to the internet to learn about the sport, the team and how to become a fan.\n\nAs she got into it, Dixon, who has yet to see a Mammoth game in person, found hockey held her attention more than other sports.\n\n“I feel like hockey is almost more personable than other sports. It feels like the players — obviously fighting is allowed and that’s kind of really fun — it feels like there’s so much emotion. They just kind of leave it all out on the ice, and it’s really, really fun to see. I love how fast-paced it is,\" she said.\n\nMammoth players share their 2025-26 highlights\n\nDixon also got to know the players through the team’s frequent social media posts. She followed Clayton Keller throughout the NHL season and in the Olympics. “You can kind of see just how real these guys are,” she said, describing Dylan Guenther and Sean Durzi as “hilarious.”\n\n“Our team is young, and just so, so funny,” she said. “It’s fun to see those personalities but then also to see them on the ice. You can kind of tell that they’re, like, real when they play.”\n\nNHL hockey, she said, is adding to the culture in Utah. She’s excited for the league’s Winter Classic coming to Salt Lake City this December 31, when the Mammoth face the Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles Stadium.\n\n“There’s only good things ahead,” Dixon said.",
  "title": "How closely did Utahns follow the Mammoth playoff run?"
}