Rob Gray-Imagn Images
It appeared Utah Hockey Club had settled on the name for the rebrand it pledged to undergo after its inaugural season before the cooler magnates at Yeti forced them to pivot. However, it didn’t take the franchise very long to unveil the three alternative monikers fans will now be able to vote on before a new one is chosen.
Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith had less than six months to prepare for the start of his first season as the owner of an NHL team after dropping $1.2 billion to purchase the Arizona Coyotes last April before moving them to Salt Lake City.
The relatively short turnaround led to the franchise taking a page out of the Washington Football Team playbook by temporarily dubbing itself the Utah Hockey Club, which was firmly positioned as a placeholder that would eventually be swapped out for one of the names fans had the chance to pick from during a series of votes that were held.
“Yetis” was widely viewed as the frontrunner and seemingly prevailed when that democratic process wrapped up. However, the franchise hit a snag earlier this month when the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected its application for the cryptid-inspired sobriquet due to the “generic” nature of the name it asserted has the potential to cause “confusion” due to preexisting trademarks—most notably the one owned by the Yeti cooler brand (which also has its own line of apparel).
According to KSL, the team has decided to move in a new direction by giving fans who attend the next four home games the opportunity to vote on a new trio of potential names using iPads scattered across the arena before one of them reigns supreme. They are:
- Utah Hockey Club
- Utah Mammoth
Utah Wasatch
UPDATE: The team opted to swap out Wasatch for Outlaws after the former failed to land with fans
The first two are pretty straightforward, but unless you’re a geography buff, you may not be aware Wasatch refers to the 160-mile mountain range that runs through the middle of northern Utah (which doesn’t really matter in the wake of the update).
I personally think Hockey Club is the best option of the three despite its fairly generic nature, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out.