On Thursday, the Utah Hockey Club officially announced the next stage of selecting their future name. The team has narrowed the selection down to three: Mammoth, Hockey Club, and Wasatch. Utah will now begin quite possibly the final survey with fans to decide their permanent branding. Here are some things you should know.
The Next Stage Begins
The announcement on Thursday begins phase three of the eventual goal to give Utah an official name that will be permanently connected to the franchise. The team has allowed fans to vote on their favorite names ever since last summer. Eventually, Utah narrowed it down to six names for phase two of the process. Names included Hockey Club, Mammoth, Venom, Yeti, Blizzard, and Outlaws.
Now with the start of phase three, fans will vote on one of three names: Mammoth, Hockey Club, and Wasatch beginning on Jan. 29. However, unlike the prior two phases, only fans attending the next four Utah home games will be able to participate in the voting.
“This next iteration will be a little bit different because we’ll be sharing names and logos now,” SEG executive Mike Maughan said. “Because of that, the survey will only be done in-arena, because we can’t publicly share all of the logos at this time…At the next four games, we will have iPad stations all throughout the arena where fans can come and take this survey. They will see potential names and logos and have them paired together. For the first time, they’ll be able to vote with that context.”
Related: Potential Venues for a Utah HC Outdoor Game
As mentioned, this is the first time the team has revealed any potential logos. The Hockey Club and the Wasatch share the same logo, which is representative of a mythical creature that looks similar to the Winnipeg ICE logo. A mountain range is also featured near the top of the creature’s head. Meanwhile, the Mammoth logo is a mammoth’s head with long tusks. Both logos are colored in Utah’s now trademark mountain blue, rock black, and salt white.
The survey will ask fans what their favorite name and logo are. It will also show the logos and the names on merchandise and screens in Delta Center. The goal is to give fans what they think is best for their NHL team.
While Hockey Club is one of the final options, the branding will not be the same as the logos the team is using this season. The colors however will return despite the change in branding.
“We have different logos and marks with the Utah Hockey Club,” Maughan said. “We always noted that those would be for year one, while we developed a more permanent brand identity.”
The surveys will be very similar to the ones that decided the NBA’s Utah Jazz’s current branding. It will be all up to the fans, and SEG has made sure they’re using only the best resources to survey them.
“We did a similar process to get us to the stage of Mountain Basketball that we have right now,” Maughan said. “We did surveys all throughout the arena with various jersey options for the Utah Jazz, and that’s how we came to the jerseys that the Jazz have…We’re following that same process, we’re employing all of the best practices of survey methodology.”
What Happened to Yeti?
As the three final names were announced, one was left out which many fans might be disappointed by. Even before Ryan Smith brought NHL hockey to Utah, Yeti was a popular name candidate for a Utah NHL team. Yeti was in the running for Utah’s name but, unfortunately, was rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office due to the “likelihood of confusion” with already registered marks. That includes the Yeti cooler company.
The NHL and Utah had extensive conversations with Yeti about a coexistence agreement. At the end of the day, Yeti refused despite the NHL partnering with the company before which ended the pursuit of the popular name.
“There’s nothing that came from the trademark office over the last week or so that was surprising to us in any way, and we had strategies to deal with all of that,” Maughan said. “We have engaged with YETI Coolers extensively. The NHL has also helped engage with us with them. At the end of the day, they have a trademark that allows them to put Yeti or Yetis on clothing and other licensed merchandise. Without a coexistence agreement, we would not be able to print that.”
Timing is an issue with Utah looking to have a final name and logo before the 2025-26 season. It isn’t just the actual branding, though, it’s having merchandise and other memorabilia ready for fans to purchase when the season begins. The NHL has been criticized in the past for the handling of Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken merchandise during their inaugural seasons, as fans of those teams weren’t able to get memorabilia until later in the season. Utah wants to get going right away, meaning holding out for the possibility of obtaining the Yeti name wasn’t feasible.
“If you think about all the things that the Jazz is printed on now, the name of the team is one thing, but it’s all of the merch,” Maughan said. “It’s all of the clothing, it’s all of the pucks and the mini sticks and all of those things. It’s a little bit hard to launch a brand if you don’t have all of that stuff ready to go. So because YETI Coolers determined that they did not want to enter into a coexistence agreement, it put those things on hold, and we decided to move on from the name Yeti.”
Some might point out that Utah could run into trouble with another one of their potential names: Mammoth due to the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League. However, Maughan assured that the final three names Utah has decided on will have no copyright issues that will conflict with the timeline the team has made.
“As you go into this trademark process, you realize that there is no name other than a made-up name that doesn’t have some trademark conflict,” Maughan said. “We have an incredible team that’s been working on all of these names for many months, and we’re confident in the path we have for any of these names that are part of this list.”
While Yeti is no longer an option for Utah’s name, the team has come up with one that they think will appease the Yeti crowd. One that pays tribute to the state of Utah and also provides an opportunity to use a mythical beast as their mascot.
Introducing Wasatch
When the three names were introduced, Wasatch was one that came out of left field. It hadn’t been included in any of the prior surveys. However, it’s one that connects to the state of Utah while still keeping the opportunity open for Utah to use a creature that most fans want as their main logo.
“We wanted to honor this idea that people had for a mythical snow creature like Yeti and bring a very Utah-centric approach to it,” Maughan said. “Because we have the Wasatch Mountains, because we have the Wasatch Front, we have so many different iterations or ways that we could do it. We wanted to honor the sentiment of one of those top names of the last iteration while also including a Utah-centric version of it. That’s where Wasatch came in because it’s very important to us that this represents Utah and the state of Utah.”
Wasatch refers to the mountain range that extends through Utah. The word Wasatch means “mountain paw” or “low pass over high range” in the local native Ute’s tongue. For Utah and SEG, it allows the team to honor their home while giving the fans the mythical creature they want.
“It still allows us to honor the mythical snow creature idea from that with a distinctly Utah appeal,” Maughan said. “We have the Wasatch Mountains here. This is the home of the Wasatch.”
Jerseys and Merchandise
Jerseys will remain similar to the ones Utah currently wears. Different striping and logos are to be expected. When it comes to a potential alternate jersey or keeping their current away jersey, as rumors have suggested, Maughan kept silent.
“We’re definitely going to have an amazing jersey reveal,” Maughan said. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t ask me that question, and you’d be disappointed if I answered it, but yeah, we’ll do a great jersey reveal when we’ve selected the name.”
Maughan didn’t say much about potential merchandise but confirmed that the team is on track to make sure it will be available to fans. Something that is definitely important for the fanbase.
At the end of the day, the road to naming Utah’s NHL team has been a long but quite successful one. Unlike most sports franchises, the Smiths have made the process a community one as they believe the Utah Hockey Club is a community asset. Thousands of people across the world have come together to help the organization get to this point and now, we’re down to three candidates, one of which will be the name of this team for years to come.
“It’s been an amazing journey to see how many fans have rallied at this point already,” Maughan said. “We’ve had over three-quarters of a million fans take a survey to weigh in on the name of Utah’s NHL team. That’s remarkable, and we’re really excited for this next part of the process, and acknowledge how excited we are to involve the community and not just get their opinion but let them be the driving force in selecting the name for the team that is in their community. That is their community asset, and that we’ll all continue to rally around for literally generations to come.”
Utah fans can begin filling out the survey at Delta Center on Jan. 29 during Utah’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They will get the opportunity to do so at every home game until Feb. 4 against the Philadelphia Flyers.
