The Utah Hockey Club practice facility is unique

The Utah Hockey Club will play its first regular season game on October 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+). NHL.com counts down to Game 1 with a five-part series on Utah hockey. Today, in Part 3, columnist Nicholas J. Cotsonika examines how Utah built a training facility in just a few months:

KEARNS, Utah – The Utah Hockey Club trains in an environment unlike any other in the NHL, and the story behind it illustrates Utah's commitment and creativity since the NHL created the new franchise on April 18.

The locker room is part of a two-story, 17,400-square-foot building that Utah built in three and a half months at a multimillion-dollar cost for its inaugural season, while also breaking ground on a permanent practice facility.

The structure occupies a corner of the 25,000-square-foot Utah Olympic Oval, the long-track speed skating venue for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, the home of U.S. speed skating and an official training site for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Games.

When players leave the locker room, they skate on a carpet over a track and skate around a 400-meter speed skating oval known as the “fastest ice in the world.” Their practice rink is located on an island in the middle of the oval and has been converted from Olympic size to NHL size.

The practice rink is adjacent to another ice rink used by figure skaters and short track speed skaters. Utah Hockey Club Olympic banners hang on the walls. Flags of nations from all over the world hang above them.

The players see speed skaters and figure skaters training. You use the running track to warm up or train. They even used the oval for speed tests in training camp, sprinting on the same ice that set 10 Olympic records and eight world records over 14 days at the 2002 Winter Games in front of 53,000 fans.

“It’s a high-performance environment,” said Chris Armstrong, president of Utah hockey operations. “You feel it as soon as you come in here. There are always athletes who strive to achieve their personal best. It’s just a good environment for every athlete.”