Utah Hockey Podcast Ep. 40: A Brief History of Time (UHP Edition)

Utah Hockey Podcast Ep. 40: A Brief History of Time (UHP Edition)

Hello and welcome to the Utah Hockey Podcast. My name is Kelly Quel and welcome to our new studio. I’m here with my co-host Mike Wolfie and Cole Bagley. Uh Cole joining us as a permanent host. Permanent. Made the try out. First time ever. Can’t have a perm, but he is permanent. He was like, “Do you want to come to my studio?” And we’re like, “Yeah, let’s do that.” I just forced my way in. Really? Yeah. So, let’s start. And like we’re we’re we’re being videotaped now. This is like new. I’m breaking the fourth wall immediately by staring into the camera. Let’s take a sec to like introduce ourselves again. Fourth wall on a podcast. Good question. H I don’t know. Michael, you’re going to have to stop picking your nose so much though. That’s actually valid. We’re probably sitting there. No, not not picking your nose, but I’m sure we’re sitting there like grabbing. I usually end up like Yeah. He was like holding his mic literally just sitting on his chest. I usually end up like where the seat turns. That’s where my neck ends up. I’m just like all the way down. So, so now you get to see us. Now, we are in KSL Studios in Salt Lake City, Utah. Um, obviously everyone knows Cole as the KSL Utah Mammoth Insider. Um, and we had Cole on so many times that it just kind of felt like, all right, well, I mean, what are we doing? Yeah. What? We’re just going to pitter patter around this relationship our entire lives. You need to start milking it from the other side. Exactly. Just use me for my resources. Exactly. Who does Cole have connections to that we can abuse? That was the thought. So, we took him out to drop in and proposed at Center Ice. Um was really romantic. Said no the first time. Yeah, he’s hard to get. He knows his Twitter following and he he uses it against us. He does. He doesn’t stop talking about it actually. No. But what what it really was, it felt like um me and Kelly can be rather um off-topic, maybe maybe unserious or or playful and maybe a little bit too much of fan sometimes. Cole brings us back down to earth. Yeah. When we’re all stoked about us making the playoffs in March, Cole’s like, “Guys, statistically very improbable in January.” Yeah. January. Yeah. He knew like statistically pretty improbable just because of the way things were shaking out. So we were like, “Okay, that’s pretty good.” You know, balance each other out. We got to have a little bit of realism. Yeah. Yeah. We’re too high in the clouds. As as the as the newest member, I guess we can go like newest to oldest member of the podcast. Newest. Cole, would you like to give us a start with your conception and then lead us through your life? All the way. Yep. We got a couple hours, maybe days. Yeah. Uh yeah. I mean, first off, grateful to be part of the podcast. Um, it’s been a lot of fun, uh, over the last couple months getting to know you guys and, you know, I just felt like there was something. Um, and so some chemistry, some chemistry, some magic. Getting really emotional. Um, no. So, yeah. Um, a year ago was brought on to KSL Sports as the Utah Mammoth Insider Utah former formerly Utah Hockey Club Insider. Do you know when the year anniversary is? Oh, we should. Let’s throw a party. August something. Oh, we’ll throw a party. It’s coming. All right. We’ll have some cake in studio. I don’t know if that’s allowed. We’ll break some rules. Um, if you Yeah. covered the uh Utah hockey club in their inaugural season. Um, and it was honestly everything I think I ever could have dreamed of to uh to grow up here. uh obviously local to Utah, went to Brighton High School, played hockey in Salt Lake County Wreck, played in high school, played a little junior Grizzlies um and just fell in love with the game and now lucky enough to be covering the NHL. Um as my career and hopefully, you know, that’s what’s going to be the next 30 to 35 years of my life is just covering the Mammoth and hopefully some Stanley Cups along the way. So, we will see. But for now, year one just ended and now we’re in the midst of the offseason. And there’s a lot to talk about, but enough about me. You didn’t mention your family at all. Well, can’t let everybody know what’s going on. No, I uh yeah, I’m happily married uh to my high school sweetheart and have two little boys who love hockey. I think my two-year-old his one of his first words was Utah, which he basically just thought was hockey, but you know, they’re one and the same. That’s an um and now they just run around playing uh hockey all the time with their little sticks and they let you know my and material now can say mammoth he identifies it. So um yeah just uh really lucky for a lot of reasons and living living the dream as we were talking about earlier. This is summer Cole cuz summer Cole is so like relaxed, laidback, so chill. M like middle of the season Cole was high stress. He was getting very little sleep writing so many stories. And I feel like now that like Did that stop? I don’t know if that’s No, that’s that was going to be my next point. Now that the name is out, maybe you can take a breather and just be a podcast host. I don’t know. Yeah, probably not. They’re going to announce something else. Kelly, would you like to introduce yourself? So, on a cold day in September of 1990, uh, I was born in Rhode Island. My dad wanted to bring us out here for more opportunity and we moved in the ‘9s to Salt Lake City. Got a lot of East Coast roots and I I project that and I’ve been told that a lot that my East Coast sarcasm just comes out a bit much. Yeah, it’s a lot. Kelly’s personality is this weird mixing pot of um like desperate housewife or the housewives of Salt Lake City, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, whatever. Desperate housewives. I could see Desperate Housewives, too. I don’t have a lawn guy, but mixed with just this like um you know that like coldness and sarcasm that comes with um dying East Coast towns. But would I pick you up from the airport? Absolutely. I sure would. Is there a Rhode Island accent? Are you kidding me? There it is. Of course. Of course. I was there this weekend, so now it’s really it’s really thick cuz I got to hear my aunts and uncles and everybody just start screaming at each other. If we’re getting dunks, go park the car way over there. Wow. I It’s my first language. That was your actual accent. I will hold on. Restart. I’m going to roll with that. You’re going to rebrand yourself. Yeah. Yeah. So, moved here. Uh kind of My dad got really involved with the Olympics in 2002, which was a big part of uh our family. He volunteered there. His name is printed in the gateway, which is cool. I know. And then uh went to high school here. Also high school sweetheart. Except for then he broke up with me. Uh-huh. Mhm. Uh-huh. He came back crawling back. Married him. Crawling. We were on the same I was desperate. Um we were on the same hockey team in high school. Did he break up with you before or after your accent like had faded? Oo, good question. Definitely after. I feel like I dropped it quick. Now I can hear myself. That’s why he came back. He’s like, “I’ll wait till that fades.” As soon as that’s gone, I cannot be yelled at. Except for when we were in Rhode Island this weekend. It came roaring back. Anyhoo, sure. Uh, I was a teacher. I taught middle school for about seven years. Um, it was a lot and it was exhausting. So, when I had my first son, I decided that’s enough of that. And I left. And I was not going to go back in 2020. Oh, it’s a beautiful day. They’re going to see you advertising so much Dr. Pepper on this show now. That was Mike just chugging Dr. Peppers all the time. That was Mike’s episode um soda pop. So there and uh I taught and then I have been home with my kids for a long time. I have played hockey for a long time. Yeah. I feel like you left out the part that you actually married your teammate. I married my teammate from high school. Yeah. Cuz hockey wasn’t super big at the time. So women’s hockey did not know that. Men’s hockey. You didn’t know that? You’re learning that today? Yes. Learning that today. Where did you guys play? Is he serious? I’m dead serious. This is not I don’t think that I needed to be part of your bio anyway. I put it on the bio. It’s on my bio. Um, I went to W Diego. My husband and I went to W. We know this. I didn’t know I didn’t know you guys played together though. Really close. We played together in high school and we beat Brighton twice. This is what I said like day one when I met you. That was hard. Twice. Two times. State champs, babe. So, anyho, I didn’t contribute at all, but I like to say that I did a lot. I We got married. It was good. That’s cool. Uh, that was my only ring. I didn’t get a championship. The only reason you played was to get the guy. Listen, that’s what my mom says. Okay. And the truth is cloudy at this point. But I’m still playing. So what does that say? I think that’s good. That he’s not very good. He’s not very good. No, he’s pretty good. He just doesn’t care. Anyhoo, I play for the Utah Alpacas who went ultraviral several times. And I play for the Utah How. And then I have been broadcasting with the University of Utah women’s program which has been a lot of fun. So a lot of my life has been hockey. I have two little boys who are also obsessed. The older one more so than the younger one. And it’s been super fun to be involved in this community already. I think Wolfie and I can both say that it’s been Yeah. super fun. So we’re super jazzed to like continue this train going. My funny thing is that when we first moved to Utah, obviously it was like scary. We had no family here. It was kind of weird, but I felt comforted because my initials were KSL. Yeah. Meant to be. Wow. What’s my middle name? See how things come. Um, your middle name is Shisha. Sandra. Sarah. We’ve already talked about this. I’m pretty sure I had successfully guessed it at some point and now I just No, I just keep asking. It’s kind of funny. Anyh who, now it’s not KSL, but it’s kind of cool that maybe you should rethink going back. A little full circle. Absolutely not. Full circle moment for Kelly. Bring us to Wyoming/ Alaska. Yeah. Well, I’ll I’ll bring us to I guess I’m learning things right now. We’ve never introduced ourselves to go. This is like step number one. Learning your name. We’re telling everybody. You still don’t know my middle name. It’s We pretty much just talk about hockey when we’re together. So, it’s not really That’s so true. Yeah, like we just start rolling. Did you see? Cuz it feels like all of us are at the same level of hockey knowledge. Like even, you know, my husband Ian is like involved but doesn’t know things. So then as soon as Yeah. we’re together, we just start chatting. Yeah. And my wife is completely uninterested in the sport. So um but I kind of just bringing this bringing Kelly’s story full circle into the podcast. Um me and the original host Eight who has since moved on. Shout out to him by the way. This is kind of cool. I absolutely love him. Needed help with him on some on some podcast stuff today and he was more than willing to help out. He’s in another state now and and and living life and uh really appreciate his contribution to just getting this going in the first place. And then I think he kind of saw the writing the wall that he was probably going to be moving to a different job and um we were like we need to stop start having some interesting people on just from the hockey community and we had Kelly on and immediately we were like that’s what we were missing. we were missing an absolutely an absolute certified crazy person on our podcast and Kelly was that voice local hockey voice honestly like like local hockey voice um female voice for the podcast because we do have a lot of female listeners and that’s a really valuable like I absolutely love the women’s hockey community here in Utah and especially when it comes to fans the the like strength and the passion of female fans here in Utah is like through the roof. So true. Um, Kelly really represented that well. And so we had her on for one episode and then had her on for the next episode and then I think at the end of So the same thing happened. We both just kind of forced essentially we were so good. I feel like I asked a couple more times like he’s making it seem like it was his idea and I was like I’m going to be on your podcast. Yeah. I I don’t think so. I think it was actually it was a lot of like eh white kind of driving the ship on that and um Yeah. And so since then, since I think that was July or August, it was it was preseason. August. Yeah. So really grateful to have have Kelly as a as a valuable voice on the podcast and I think she has a lot of different perspectives than than maybe me or Cole and especially me and Ew at the time brought to the table. So um can’t wait for you to compliment me now. Um I was just going to finish that and go into what I was talking about. No, do it. Do it. Teach me about Wyoming because I had no idea. No, not super relevant. We don’t like to talk about Wyoming, but I was born there, unfortunately, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Sorry if you’re from Cheyenne, Wyoming. That’s my bad. But if you’ve ever been there, you probably know why I’m like not really wanting to tell people. I am from Alaska. I moved to Alaska when I was very young. My dad in the military. Don’t ever forget. Cole’s like, “We need to add that to your Hold on. Hold on. I’ll type it.” Um, yeah. So, I was I was born in Wyoming. Dad’s in the military. So lived in Italy until I was about one. Like left Wyoming almost immediately, thank goodness. My mom’s from there and none of us ever care to go back. Um and uh grew up in Alaska pretty much my entire life around the sport of hockey. My dad is is from the is he’s from Michigan and Ohio, but mainly like Grand Rapids, Michigan and then Massland, Ohio. So right in between there, the Detroit Red Wings. um he grew up during kind of the Dead Wings era, but mainly during like the Steve Eisermanman era and then he started winning in the late 90s and um I just grew up with this remembering 2002. I don’t remember my first years when my first years of life when when the Cubs were won in Detroit, but I remember O2. I remember 08 really well. Um it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like um a certain player that that is Cole’s favorite player. Um but I have a lot of respect. He didn’t even mention by the way his favorite player. introduction. No, no, it’s okay. I feel like I need to go. I feel like I need to go again. Yeah, Cole’s going to have another We’re We’re coming around. We’re coming around. Just tell us deeper and darker until I I absolutely love hockey. I remember I mean I have I have photos of myself in hockey fan apparel as a newborn, just a day old. And I have every single age filling that out in in in similar gear that my dad would um mostly get made in Korea because he was an enlisted member of the military. So we didn’t have a ton of money to spend on real gear. But um yeah, grew up a diehard hockey fan my entire life. Played a little bit bit of pond hockey growing up but moved around a little bit. So getting into a into playing a a kind of expensive contact sport like hockey and where it’s pretty political wherever you go is kind was kind of difficult. So um never until basically like a couple months ago put on gear and played hockey. So in in when you acquired gear from the Utah hockey club. Yeah. Exact pretty much. When I bought Ian Cole’s gloves I’m a hockey player now. Um um Notre Dame alum. Exactly. Notre Dame alum. and Ian Cole. Shout out to Ian Cole because I love Notre Dame. So that’s something you’ll probably also hear a little bit of fandom on here, but it’s a hockey podcast so probably not so much. Um I moved to Utah about 8 years ago after serving LDS mission in in Detroit and which again didn’t know that. Yeah. Just like just roots in Detroit all the time. You didn’t know he spoke Detroit? That’s like one of the big things. I like opened my mission call in a Detroit Redwing shirt. That’s amazing. I know. And then I read Detroit. I was like, “Uh, yes, please. That sounds awesome. And the only person happy to go to Detroit on their mission for real though. Okay. I will not I will not hear this slander of Detroit even though it probably deserves it to an extent. Um now I moved here about eight years ago and met my wife and um started a business. You met your wife here? Yes. I’m learning to. Yeah. So she was doing a graphic design internship right here downtown and I knew that one and uh I learned it last year. Fill in the gaps. Yes. And we just actually across the street from here, this is where we met. We met at the Seasons on City Creek. Shares a parking lot with the with Crown Burger. I know. Right back where it all began. Even though these two things are completely different, but yeah, met my wife. um started a business, got a house, had a couple kids, did all the kind of feel like I’m like we joke about living live living, but I feel extremely fortunate to just be able to be in in this position to come on a Tuesday in the middle of the day in the summer and just talk about hockey. Totally. So, I’m I’m super grateful that I met you guys through this situation and that I’m able to be a part of the growth of the sport. A year ago, I guess how I got involved in Utah, that’s kind of important. Um, so that people know a little bit about that. I’ll be brief. Um, about a year ago, the team it it was kind of going around a rumor that they were potentially moving to Utah. And so, I started I was in my home doing a seance that they were coming. I was every single day lighting a candle. Yeah. My I guess my the way that probably most people know me here in the Utah community, not probably, that’s how they know me in the hockey community. Um I started an Instagram account a couple maybe a week before the team was officially announced to move here and I just started posting um headlines and videos and and making content um on the like outside of the Delta Center about the hockey team and people just kind of resonated with it. No one else was doing it at the time. The team didn’t even exist. And then the team didn’t have an official Instagram account, so there was like nowhere for people to go who consumed content on Instagram. And so I just like was yapping about hockey on Instagram and people liked it. And uh here we are at NHL Utah. And uh I actually remember first story f first time I ever met Cole. I I knew about Cole because he was he had been covering the team, but I’m I’m not super big on on X just as a consumer. I I don’t go on Twitter a lot, but I knew knew of Cole just because he was actively uh covering the team in an official way. And um when they announced the jerseys, I think it was the jersey announcement. I think it was opening. It was the first game. It was the morning of the first game when Bman was there was there and um I saw the hat. Yeah, I I walked up and I think Cole saw the hat and we just connected and um he big time me. Yeah, I was I I couldn’t believe that I was seeing Cole Baggley in the flesh. I peed a little. I was real not AI. Yeah. No, I got it was it was really cool because Cole actually had noticed me and like came up and introduced himself and uh I I just Cole is a is a really important voice especially over this first year in Utah hockey club. Like I I really feel like he’s going to for hockey fans in general in Utah, he’s going to go down as a really important part of the history of the sport here cuz he has covered the team so well. like you look at the way um teams are usually covered in their first year and I feel like it feels a little bit um it feels a little little rookie and I feel like we were kind of um blessed as a fan base to have multiple people who are doing a good job but specifically like Cole just absolutely killing it on getting news out there quickly communicating with fans being genuine and not being like this oh I have media access so I’m a big deal but like really wanting to like interact with fans and be a part of the community instead of being this like I’m cooler than everybody kind of guy. Um and I feel like that’s how like we had him on the podcast months ago and immediately we’re like this guy’s freaking sweet. Yeah. Um to add on to your compliments Oh, about Cole, I just I was just I was just saying to crying right now one of our one of our producers cuz we can say this now that we have producers now. just that you are an icon to this fandom already because true. That’s a good one. It’s true though. It’s true. It’s true. I was like, “Wow.” Because I did not pay them to say this. It’s We feel like we have to say this now that we’re in KSL Studios. They’ve never been this nice to me. I just feel like you’re an icon to this fan base because you have kept secrets that you had to keep while reporting on things that you felt like, you know, the team would be mad at you for, but that’s the truth of the situation. You’ve just done reporting and just like you said, not an amateur way, journalisming. Yeah. And to have like a local guy who has local roots be able to do that is like amazing. He also knows grammar and spells things mostly correctly which we value and respect which Kelly values and respects a lot coming from a former teacher. Do you know how how much it irks me most of the time. Yeah. Every time every time I publish something I’m like I want to go make sure that Kelly wouldn’t be upset. I’ll just screenshot Stanley Cup spelled wrong. Yeah. I think it’s funny that we I mean it we’re all coming from situations like even in our personal lives where we’re like raising kids into the sport. So we each have two kids um like similar age. I was there when Cole’s kids stepped on the ice for the first time for the first time. I was helping them skate. She taught them way better than I did. Cuz kids listen to me better than they do their own parents. That’s why I was hired. Yeah. If you need a personal teacher for your kid, I will happily oneon-one teach your child to skate um to compliment you now because this is just a thing. I genuinely just have to say that I feel like you downplayed your role because again an icon of the hockey community, but I genuinely don’t feel like unless you have been paying attention to Instagram. People don’t understand how much time you dedicate to this fandom. Like you are in the mix talking about things constantly. You’re like first on the scene to be like reporting things. We all value that a lot. Right after Cole Cole’s text us his tweet. I know. I know. Before bags was a thing. I do I don’t I feel like just the way I was raised I feel like I don’t like half things in my life. Like I if I if I do something I’m going to I’m going to do it fully. And so I started the page and just like for people that don’t follow me like I I I posted over like 600 times in the first year. Yeah. So I was doing way too much. But also, I think as much as I wanted to do because of how well people responded and it was just kind of it’s been a blast to be a part of it. And I think this relationship with KSL is like full circle moment for for us to just be able to be a little closer to the team and and closer to Cole who who is like with the team all the time and reporting on things. He’s the first on the scene for a lot of things. Like I said, like Kelly said, like I’m probably maybe first on Instagram, but it’s a lot of Cole being like, “Okay, I can report this. Tweet, text the tweet.” Yeah. Creatives are made quickly, and since I work for myself, I can I can slack off and uh do that and just do hockey for a whole day if I want, which is which is really fun. So, yeah. Yeah. Agree. Cole, you said there might be things that you felt like you want to circle back. As long as we’re complimenting each other in this emotional session, first session here. No, I I think you guys, you know, nailed it in terms of describing like we’re all here because we’re passionate about it. Too too passionate probably. Yeah. But it’s it’s a good thing. These people are like, “Do the do these people have jobs or children or like what’s going on?” Yeah. I mean, I hired a sitter to be here today. I literally did. like this like this is my job but you guys love it enough to do these things. That’s true. He is getting paid. Like we’ll get there. He’s on salary. He has health insurance. But like M you know Michael was the first like major social media account. Totally. And like players thought you were the team. So that that kind of shows how good that Yeah. No, I can confirm multiple players thought that the the Michael’s NHL Utah the team though still follow me and they’re homies now. They’re besties. They’re learning. I’m sure that they’re learning information from you that they didn’t hear from the team. Yes. I didn’t know that Logan Drooie was was Please bring him up later. Please. We got to talk about him. Yeah, but you know, you you were the first like major platform for people to to become um familiar with, right, hockey in Utah and you accepted that role and yeah, you posted so many times, but you were doing it because of the love of the game and they decided I would get people sending me his posts as if I wasn’t already around and on the scene like, have you heard Yeah, he posted that three days ago, bro. Well, and and Kelly, you know, as Michael was talking about, like you’re such an icon in I think the the female Okay, we can’t. You know, I feel like we’re using the word icon, too. I’m just kidding. That’s probably the only icon here for being honest. She’s the one that started using word. I like beer league beauty better, but continue. You’re beer league beauty. You know, you I think you have a a huge reach in, you know, all the the female fans and those that are trying to get into the game. You know, I’ve talked to a lot of people who know who you are. Not just because your Instagram post booing all of the, you know, uh, animals and capital. Yeah. Uh, went viral, but no, I I and that’s why we’re I think we’re all here is because we all love this. We’re passionate about it. We all have things that we excel at and, you know, now together we’re we’re bringing it at home. And I feel like it’s like the uniting of a superhero team. It really is. It really is. Now, when Cole brought this kind of idea to us that he came on the first podcast and then I think it was we had him on like a month later and he was like, “So, what do you guys think about maybe just doing this?” I was going to say to Cole’s credit, he was offered to do a podcast without us and he was like, “We could do it with these guys cuz I like them and that’s valuable to me. That’s meaningful.” Okay, we have to stop gushing and talk about Yeah. done with the love session. It’s over. I feel like that was a great introduction. If you made it this far, good for you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for being with us and um absolutely listen. We do talk about hockey. That was just hockey. Could we make that its own episode? Is that cool? Okay, cool. We’ll just and and love you. That Yep. Thank you for listening. And um at the same time this episode’s posted, another episode will be posted where we actually talk about hockey and not just about ourselves. So outro music.

Michael Wolfe is a lifelong hockey fan who grew up in Chugiak, Alaska. Now a proud Utah resident, he started a social media platform independently covering the NHL’s newest franchise before they technically existed. What started as a passion project turned into a front-row seat to the rise of NHL hockey in Utah. When he’s not talking Mammoth hockey on the Utah Hockey Podcast or @nhlutah (Instagram), Michael hangs out with his wife and two kids. He also owns a marketing agency where he spends his days convincing clients that power plays and brand strategy are basically the same thing (they are). He proudly bleeds Mountain Blue… which is either devotion or a medical issue.

Kelly Quiel is a former middle school teacher turned full-time mom who has been playing hockey in Utah for nearly two decades. She and her husband won the high school hockey state championship (twice, both times against Cole’s high school, before Cole was old enough to be on the team). Kelly is often found in the mountains of Utah with her sons, reenacting the Eras Tour loudly and/or doing comedy bits. She’s a fierce advocate for the underrepresented and treasures featuring women in hockey with the Utah Alpuckas, Utah Howl, and broadcasting for the University of Utah women’s hockey team. She credits herself alongside Ryan Smith for bringing the Mammoth to Utah—him with the wallet, and her with the manifesting.

The Utah Hockey Podcast is a dynamic look at the Utah Mammoth franchise from its very beginning as Wolfey, Cole, and Kelly simplify the game and the NHL for new fans, deep dive and analyze for life-long hockey fans, and add their own hilarious and unfiltered takes along the way.