WSHL’s Utah Altitude Announced They Have Folded After One Game

Updated to include confirmation from the Altitude’s Twitter account.

The WSHL kicked off their return season this past weekend, but not without some difficulties. The opening series between Bellingham and Seattle was postponed to a later date, and the Utah/Vernal series was announced as having no broadcast coverage. Following a single game for the Utah Altitude however, they have folded.

The Altitude picked up the season-opening win on Halloween, and was scheduled to play Vernal in game two of their series at 9:00a the following Monday, but there have been no reports from the arena, and a view of the webcam from the Olympic Oval shows no activity on the ice surface.

Reports locally are that the Altitude have folded after just a single game, and players are being dispersed to other teams. This was later confirmed via the team’s Twitter account. Reasons for the fold are being attributed to the Olympic Oval ice being available only for Monday-Wednesday midday games (with a couple of Sundays mixed in), and a lack of billet families available for the players.

Considering the area already has three USPHL teams within a 50-mile proximity of each other (Utah Outliers, Ogden Mustangs, Provo Riverblades), billet families and the battle for getting fans in the seats were going to be tough to start with. Adding in that the majority of games are midday during the week, that’s a hard thing for any team to deal with.

With the Altitude folding, that leaves just four teams in the US for the WSHL. Vernal is scheduled to host Bellingham next weekend, while Seattle now finds itself without an opponent. This also potentially pushes Rogue Valley’s debut even further out, as they were to open on the road against the Altitude, but we will see how any reschedules shake out.