The Utah Hockey Club will play its first regular-season game on Oct. 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+). NHL.com is counting down to the first game of a five-part series on hockey in Utah. Today, in Part 3, columnist Nicholas J. Cotsonika looks at how Utah set up a practice facility in just a few months:

KEARNS, Utah– The Utah Hockey Club practices in an environment unlike any other in the NHL, and the story behind it illustrates Utah’s dedication and creativity since the NHL established the new franchise on April 18.

The locker room is part of a two-story, 180,000-square-foot building in Utah, built in three and a half months at a cost of several million dollars for the first season while breaking ground for a permanent practice facility.

The structure sits in a corner within the 275,000-square-foot Utah Olympic Oval, the speed skating venue for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Games, home of U.S. Speed ​​Skating and an official U.S. Olympic and Paralympic training site.

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

The practice rink is located next to another ice rink used by figure skaters and short track skaters. Utah Hockey Club banners with Olympic banners hang on the walls. Flags of countries around the world hang above their heads.

The players see skaters and figure skaters training. They use the athletics track to warm up or train. They even used the oval for speed tests in training camps, sprinting across the same ice that set ten Olympic records and eight world records in front of 53,000 fans over a fortnight during the 2002 Winter Games.

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