Salt Lake City also received an Arena Football League team known as
the Utah Blaze in 2006, who were popular in their first season in Utah,
recording the highest average attendance in the league.

The Utah Blaze began play on January 28, 2006, playing the San Jose SaberCats on the road. The team is coached by longtime Arizona
Rattlers coach Danny White and plays its home games at the EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City, home of the National
Basketball Association's Utah Jazz.

Despite a losing record of 7-9, the Blaze got into the playoffs as an
AC Wildcard (the conference's #6 seed). Unfortunately, the newly formed Blaze were given the boot as they lost to the Arizona Rattlers
with a final score of 57-34.

The Utah Jazz play in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and
were originally the New Orleans Jazz, but due to owner Sam Battistone's
unhappiness in New Orleans (and perhaps his wife's Utah roots), moved to Utah in 1979.

The Jazz were one of the most successful teams in the late 1980s and
1990s, winning two Western Conference Titles in 1997 and 1998 under
coach Jerry Sloan, who is still the head coach. The Finalist teams were anchored by the combination of point guard John Stockton and power forward Karl Malone and made the playoffs 20 consecutive seasons
(behind only the record Portland Trail Blazers' 21-year playoff streak).
Malone and Stockton are generally seen as two of the best players in
history at their positions and among the best two-player combinations
of all time.

The Jazz had a surprisingly good start to the 2006-07 season, getting
off to a league and franchise best 12–1 record, despite an injury to Kirilenko that caused him to miss 5 games. Williams showed remarkable improvement and finished second in the league in assists per game (behind Steve Nash), with 9.3, the most ever by any Jazz player except John Stockton. Carlos Boozer was selected to his first All-Star Game as
a reserve, but missed the game due to injury; Mehmet Okur was
selected as one of the four injury replacements and has developed a reputation as a remarkable clutch shooter.

The Jazz developed a very deep roster; in the 10 games that Boozer
and Okur (the two leading scorers) missed, the team went 8–2. Paul
Millsap became one the biggest surprise rookies of the year. The Jazz clinched their first playoff berth in 4 seasons on March 25, and on March 28 clinched the division title. The Jazz fared poorly in the last few weeks of the regular season and finished with 51–31 record, good for sixth overall in the league. It was their best record in 6 seasons.

Their opponent in the first round of the NBA playoffs was the Houston Rockets, who had finished one game ahead of the Jazz in the
competition for home court advantage in the series. The Jazz lost the first two games in the series but were able to force a seventh game.
The first six games of the series were all won by the home team; Utah broke this trend in the seventh game by beating the Rockets in Houston 103–99.

The Jazz eliminated the Warriors in five games to advance to the
Western Conference finals for the first time since 1998.They then met
the San Antonio Spurs, who had eliminated the Phoenix Suns. The Spurs won the series, eliminating theJazz from the playoffs in five games.

Because Utah lacks a professional football team of its own, college
football is very popular in the state. The University of Utah and
Brigham Young University both maintain large and faithful followings in the city, and rivalries are intense during the annual game between the two universities. This is sometimes referred to as the Holy War, despite the fact that Utah is a secular university.

The University of Utah's sports teams are called the Utes. There are many "nicknames" for the teams too, as, for instance, the basketball team known as the "Runnin' Utes"; in former days, the football team
was known as "Runnin' Redskins", and the gymnastics team is known
as "the Red Rocks". Utah participates in the NCAA's Division I
(Division I-A for football) as part of the Mountain West Conference.

The focus each football season is to beat their chief rival, the BYU
Cougars, in the last game of the regular season in a contest which
for one week seems to divide the entire state. This traditional season
finale has been called"The Holy War" by national broadcasting
commentators and is one of the fierciest, most bitter rivalries in all
college football.

Winter sports, such as skiing and snowboarding, are popular activities
in the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City. Eight ski resorts lie within 50 miles (80 km) of the city. Alta, Brighton, Solitude, and
Snowbird are located in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons to the
southeast, Deer Valley, The Canyons, and Park City Resort are located to the east, near Park City in Summit County, and Sundance is located to the southeast in Utah County. The popularity of the ski resorts has increased nearly 29% since the 2002 Winter Olympics.

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