Shane Doan holds court in arena concourse with Coyotes fans who made the trip up to Utah

Utah HC has officially broken the ice.

The NHL team formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes are playing their first game as a new franchise tonight in front of a sold out crowd at Salt Lake City's Delta Center.

The fans in Utah have embraced this team fully in the short five months that have passed since it was announced that the team would be moving and from the Arizona desert to the Great Salt Lake Desert. Season ticket packages are sold out, fans are filling the seats and the entire community has embraced the sport and its new team.

Still, you can't help but feel for fans in Arizona who lost their team.

I'll be the first to admit that I had hoped the Coyotes would have moved years before they ultimately relocated. I've been calling for the NHL to get the team out of the Arizona market for at least a decade. The fact of the matter is that there simply aren't enough hockey fans in Arizona to support an NHL team. That's not to say that the fans that the team did have weren't passionate, because they were. There just simply weren't enough of them to support the team. The same thing, unfortunately, played out for the Atlanta Thrashers also.

For those fans, Coyotes legend Shane Doan was on hand this evening so that they'd feel seen, heard and represented. Doan personally travelled to Salt Lake City for tonight's game and was seen holding court with Coyotes fans in the arena's concourse.

Check this out:

How cool is that?!

Of all the people involved in the downfall of the Coyotes, it's Doan that I might feel the worst for. He stuck by that franchise through everything and was there for the team's highest points and lowest points. He was Mr. Coyote for years and his dedication to the team was unwavering... that is until Alex Meruelo messed things up, but I digress.