Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
Earlier this week, Utah Hockey Club revealed a list of three monikers its fans would be able to vote on as the team gears up for a rebrand after being forced to accept Yetis wasn’t in the cards. However, it didn’t take them very long to swap out one candidate that didn’t exactly take the world by storm.
Utah Hockey Club kicked off its inaugural season in Salt Lake City with that name as a placeholder while promising its fans would be heavily involved in the process of selecting a permanent one that would be adopted ahead of the NHL franchise’s second campaign in the wake of the move from Arizona.
An online vote was held over the summer to narrow down the list of candidates, and while it seemed like Yetis (or Yeti) ended up reigning supreme, that plan was derailed due to preexisting trademarks (namely the one held by the popular cooler company that beat them to the punch) that prevent their application from being accepted.
On Wednesday, the team announced fans who attended its next four home games would have the chance to use iPads stationed around the Delta Center to once again vote on three new finalists: Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth, and Utah Wasatch.
Wasatch, a reference to the mountain range stretching through the top half of the state, seemed like a bit of an outlier given its fairly obscure nature. It subsequently emerged as a bit of a dark horse, and one fan seemingly hacked into a billboard to voice their displeasure with a message that read “NO ONE KNOWS WHAT A ‘WASATCH’ IS.”
It would appear that particular option ended up in a distant third place when the first round of the fan vote transpired when Utah hosted Pittsburgh on Wednesday night, as the team released a message on Thursday acknowledging the lack of interest it generated while announcing “Outlaws” has replaced it as the third member of the aforementioned trio.
Hey Utah hockey fans! We listened to your feedback and dug into all the Qualtrics data from last night’s survey. For the team name, it’s clear that Outlaws should be in the mix instead of Wasatch, so we’re swapping it out.
Surveys will continue at the arena Friday, Sunday and…
— Utah Hockey Club (@utahhockeyclub) January 30, 2025
Based on many of the reactions I’ve come across online, it seems like Outlaws is now the frontrunner (it’s worth noting they’d share the name with the Denver Outlaws of the Premier Lacrosse League), and we should know the final result within the next couple of weeks.