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The Utah Hockey Club entered the season with a temporary moniker as they conducted a search for a full-time brand identity. Over the last few months, it became clear the team favored Yeti or Yetis as the full-time name. However, the Utah Hockey Club ran into trademark issues with that and other monikers. Now, they are changing course.
The Utah Hockey Club lost in overtime to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night. But fans in attendance had their first opportunity to vote on a final team name. The three finalists are the Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth, and Utah Wasatch, the team confirmed on social media. Voting will also take place during the team's next three home games.
Utah is playing respectable hockey in its first season in Salt Lake City. After Wednesday's loss, they hold a record of 21-21-8 on the season, good for 50 points. They have some ground to make up if they want to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, though. Utah is six points back of the Vancouver Canucks, who own the final Wild Card spot in the West. And they are five points back of the next closest team, the Calgary Flames.
Examining the new Utah Hockey Club name candidate
The Utah Hockey Club and the Utah Mammoth are names many expected to see in the final list. One is the current moniker in place for the 2024-25 campaign. And the other is a moniker that appeared when voting on a name began over the summer.
However, Utah Wasatch is a new name and a surprising inclusion. The name is very specific to the state of Utah. The Wasatch Mountain Range runs through Idaho and Utah. Salt Lake City lies between this range and the Great Salt Lake, as well.
The idea for this new name came from the collapse of the Yeti trademark. Utah could not obtain the trademark since the Yeti cooler company already had a trademark which allowed them to print the name for merchandise reasons. The cooler company also declined to enter into a coexistence agreement with the Hockey Club, according to Smith Entertainment Group executive Mike Maughan, via KSL.com.
As for the Wasatch name, it's meant to honor the local mountain range while. Furthermore, they wanted to incorporate a “mythical snow creature” despite not being able to use the Yeti name. “We have the Wasatch Mountains, we have the Wasatch Front, we have so many different iterations or ways that we could do it, so we wanted to honor the sentiment of one of those top names while also including a Utah-centric version of it,” Maughan said, via KSL.com.
