Sun Devil hockey is ready for Mullett Arena grand opening

(Photo via Anthony Remedios/WCSN)

New sights. New smells. New ice. New locker rooms. These are just some of the many characteristics of the new building that the Arizona State men’s hockey team will now call home. After a 10-day road trip to Minnesota, the Sun Devils will finally open the doors of Mullett Arena to the public on Friday, where fans can get a full look at Tempe’s newest addition.

Most notable among the fans on Friday will be the 942-seat student section on the west side, which officially sold out early Wednesday afternoon. Student tickets to Saturday’s game sold out just after 5:00 Thursday afternoon.

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“Seeing what ASU has done in all sports with their student section, we’ve never had a chance to put it to full capacity and I can’t wait to see what they got in store this weekend,” sophomore forward and captain Josh Doan said.

“It’s going to be unreal,” graduate forward Demetrios Koumontzis said on Tuesday. “To know that your student body is behind your student body is behind you, that’s truly a special feeling. So, I’m excited to see everyone show up this Friday.”

The new state of the art facility will host a total capacity of 5,000 fans, compared with the 751 they were previously allotted at Oceanside Ice Arena. Additionally, the arena features 22 total seats, club lounge, a social deck on the 300-level, and real press boxes where journalists and those working the event won’t be hitting their heads on pipes.

“It was always a pipe dream for me, all the guys I used to play with, and the guys who played before me here,” ASU alum and head coach Greg Powers said. “Dating back to 1979, we’d joke about something like this happening and it’s happened.”

Perhaps the most significant factor of the new arena is the university’s partnership with the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes.

When the Coyotes signed the agreement with ASU, they contributed $19.7 million in arena improvements, of which consists of a two-story annex and locker rooms adjacent to the facility, and many in-arena upgrades, such as the ice quality, bench technology, ribbon boards, and enhanced broadcasting infrastructure to meet NHL standards. The improvements bring the arena’s total cost to about $134 million from the original $115 million dollar project. ASU will keep all of these additions after the Coyotes’ departure.

“The resources, and quite frankly the players, we now have access to is just going to take our program to a new level in every way,” Powers said. “There’s not a bad seat in the house.”

“It gives us more face time,” Koumontzis said. “The NHL teams are going to be around here. We’re going to be around here. It’s going to bring more fans, and that’s good for us.”

“God bless Oceanside. We miss it, but when you get into a place this nice that has the resources that we now have access to, it proves how well we did with what we had to work with,” Powers said.

While some of the arena differences are pretty obvious, others are ones that the fans don’t see on an everyday basis. Powers described the blue collar and Oceanside murals outside the locker room, to serve as a reminder of where the program came from and the fundamental principles it has been built upon.

“The biggest thing for a lot of us is you can come in with our street clothes and change into our gym stuff in the rink,” Doan said. “We would have to drive from gym to rink every day and all that just takes up time from being at the rink and time in getting ready for practice.”

For Doan, Mullett Arena is just another piece to his family’s legacy in the Valley, one that is already quite the resumé with his father Shane’s impact on the Coyotes organization.

“We’ve been through it all, my dad especially, with arenas and stuff like that in Arizona, and to see something like this come together is super special,” Doan said. “It goes show that hockey is desired here and people want hockey in the desert.”

On the ice, the Sun Devils are 1-3 on the season after earning their first win in the state of Minnesota and splitting the series against Bemidji State last weekend. Junior forward Matthew Kopperud and senior transfer Robert Mastrosimone were the leaders offensively against Bemidji State, both scoring two goals each and Mastrosimone’s first as a Sun Devil. Despite only picking up one win on the road trip, Powers is still optimistic about the results.

“Three out of four games on the road, we took points, and that’s going to help us in the PairWise [rankings] as we go,” Powers said. “It doesn’t reflect in the record but if you get to overtime on the road against good teams, it really helps you in the rankings.”

This weekend, Colgate comes to town as the first opponent at Mullett. ASU is 2-3-1 against the Raiders all-time, but picked up an overtime win in the split series last season. The Raiders finished the 2021-22 season at .500 with four ties. They come to Tempe winless in the 2022-23 season after dropping both games to Northern Michigan last weekend.

“We created a really tough environment for teams to come in at Oceanside, but this is going to be tough,” Powers said, while noting the fact that 24 of the team’s next 35 games will take place at Mullett Arena. “We really have to create a home ice advantage and take advantage of that.”

Fans are encouraged to arrive early for this weekend’s festivities. Ribbon cutting will begin at 4:45 p.m. MST on Friday. The Gila River Resorts & Casino Outdoor Plaza will open to the public at 4 p.m. and will feature live music, roaming entertainment, and food and beverage options. Doors for both games will officially open at 5:30 with both puck drops scheduled for 7:00 MST.