An unremarkable, concrete entryway in a Millcreek strip mall. A painted red door with a stairway beyond it that descends into an underground sports haven.

Here there are no expensive seats. The beer is cold, the food is good and the cheers are loud. On a Monday in March at A Bar Named Sue, Utah Mammoth fans show up, loud and proud, for a watch party.

In many ways, the bar is as rowdy as a home game. Boos break out when the Dallas Stars score their first goal. Marked-up tables inevitably become drums when fights break out on the ice as fans egg players on from over 1,200 miles away.

The tinny thrill of a cowbell, rung by watch party host Austin Facer, fills the air when the boys score. Anticipation colors every moment — when replays take over the television screens, when a “Let’s Go Utah” chant breaks out and as Facer hands out raffle prizes between periods.

As the 40-something fans who are anxious to watch the team break a four-game losing streak can attest, Utah’s hockey culture doesn’t live solely inside the walls of the Delta Center.

A way to build community

Facer is the host and founder of SLC Puck, a podcast and media company that is rooted in hockey fan culture.

“I wanted to build a place where we could all connect, get together and grow the community,” Facer said.

One of the previous managers of A Bar Named Sue reached out to Facer to host a watch party last season. Since then, he’s put on a handful of them.

Facer estimates he has around 20 “die-hard” supporters who come to every watch party. At one for this year’s season opener, they “overran” the bar’s Midvale location, he said. He’s also held a party at the Megaplex in Daybreak, which he sold tickets to. But usually, his parties are free.

Being a part of the Mammoth community has led people like Shaylee Dinga to the Mammoth versus Stars watch party — her first.

“This is so not like me to show up to a bar by myself just to hang out and watch a game,” Dinga said. “It’s just more so the community and meeting new people and being a part of something.”

Dinga creates and hands out Mammoth-themed blue, white and black beaded friendship bracelets — Taylor Swift style — as a conversation starter and to spread joy. It leads her to connect with a few fellow fans during the evening.

“I’m just glad that [a watch party] is an option, especially for people who don’t have the streaming services, don’t have an option to watch from home. You can still come watch the game and have it be a welcoming, safe space,” she said.

Ambrey Holloway, another attendee, agrees.

“I’m a very outgoing person, but I don’t like doing things by myself,” she said.

Holloway also works at the Delta Center and said watch parties can help replicate that fan experience on a different scale.

“You’re not in a stadium, but in an environment,” she said.

While most watch parties are held when the Mammoth play away games, fans also gather to watch home games, and ticket costs at the Delta Center factor in.

“If it weren’t for those Smith’s single goal view seats that are just 15 bucks, I wouldn’t be going to nearly as many hockey games as I do,” Facer said.

A representative for Smith Entertainment Group, which owns the Mammoth and Utah Jazz, said they couldn’t provide the average cost of a ticket to a home game this season because “many factors” go into determining ticket costs.

Those factors include “dynamic demand, team performance, opponent quality, seat location, [and] prices often adjusting in real-time.”

For fans like Facer, watch parties are a way to get together without breaking the bank.

And Facer believes there’s a watch party culture in hockey in a way there isn’t for basketball because the ice sport reaches people in a different way.

“Hockey lends itself a little bit better to that side of the person who just wants to hang out, have a beer and sit next to a buddy at a bar,” Facer said. “Those people just tend to find themselves at hockey games more than basketball games.”

Watch parties to fundraisers

Slapshot Utah is another fan-run podcast, hosted by Jon Cook and Leroy Estep. After last season, the friends talked about how most sports podcasts tend to be analytical, focusing on statistics and gameplay.

“When I listen to podcasts, I like to feel like I’m just a friend hanging out in the room with my friends,” Cook said.

So, the pair made a podcast that’s “for the fans and about the fans.” It features a hotline that people can call into, then Cook and Estep play the voicemails on their show.

“We’re not expecting to ever be on ESPN or anything like that. We’re just having fun, two fans that love the Mammoth,” Cook said.

Earlier this year, Slapshot hosted its first watch party at BIG Willies, inspired by a fellow Mammoth fan and friend of Cook’s, Branden Hockenbury, who started a Clubbers Cookout during the team’s first season.

The January watch party ended up becoming a fundraiser. They gave away a signed Dylan Guenther jersey, a hockey stick signed by the entire team and other various swag.

“We filled up a box truck of donations to give to the Road Home, a little bit over $1,500 in cash, not to mention the Venmo donations,” Cook said.

The friends hope to host more watch parties in the future. Cook said the camaraderie of rooting for the same team — in or out of the arena — is a uniting force, and he, too, “lives off the $15 ticket.”

“It feels like, as a country right now, we’re all on different teams, and we’re all cheering against each other in one way or another,” Cook said. “But when you cheer for one team or sport or anything like this, it brings everyone in that room [together.]”

Hockenbury’s annual cookout came from attending a watch party for the last game of the first season.

“We were getting down. We were at our last watch party. The season was going to end. We weren’t going to make the playoffs,” Hockenbury said. “We’re going to miss just hanging out together because we formed a thing.”

The solution was to have a barbecue and Hockenbury took charge since cooking is a hobby. The cookout ended up becoming a fundraiser for Bee The Hope, a foundation that helps families who have kids with cancer.

Hockenbury said they raised around $3,000 and Ryan Smith, the owner of the Jazz and Mammoth, even donated hats and gear.

This year’s Clubbers Cookout will be on May 23.

According to Hockenbury, the event is a perfect example of the people who make up Utah’s hockey culture, which has grown strong and steady over the past two years.

“The hockey culture and ourselves are what create people wanting to get together outside of the games, because we enjoy each other’s company and root on our Mammoth,” he said.