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Utah’s NHL team is a week away from kicking off its first season as the Mammoth after playing its inaugural one in its new home under the generic “Hockey Club” label. A trademark issue prevented the team from adopting the name that emerged as the top candidate during the rebranding effort, but another one with the potential to cause some headaches doesn’t appear to be going away.
Ryan Smith already owned the Utah Jazz when he decided to add an NHL team to his portfolio by purchasing the Arizona Coyotes for $1.2 billion in 2024. He didn’t waste any time moving the team to Salt Lake City, but he made it clear he was in no rush to decide on a new identity for the squad that was known as the “Utah Hockey Club” during its first season in its new home.
It appeared “Yeti” had emerged as the frontrunner, but the franchise was ultimately forced to go in a new direction due to trademark issues involving the multibillion-dollar cooler company that had previously staked a claim to that name.
It seemed safe to assume Utah’s legal team had done its due diligence to ensure there wouldn’t be any issues stemming from the names fans got the chance to vote on at games last season, which led to the franchise announcing it had decided to rebrand as the Utah Mammoth ahead of the 2025-26 season.
However, that was apparently not the case due to a dispute that surfaced over the summer and has heated up shortly before the new campaign is set to get underway.
A hockey bag company is trying to prevent the Utah Mammoth from selling merchandise due to a trademark dispute stemming from the NHL team’s new name
In August, Mammoth Hockey, a company that’s spent more than a decade selling equipment bags since launching a Kickstarter campaign in 2014, found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit filed by the Mammoth over a back-and-forth where the former had threatened to take legal action over a potential trademark issue.
The primary purpose of that lawsuit was to get a judge to determine whether or not the NHL franchise has the right to use the name while clarifying the consumer confusion issue that lies at the heart of the dispute; at the risk of getting too into the weeds of intellectual property law, trademarks only tend to protect a company from competitors who operate in a similar space as opposed to giving them the exclusive right to a particular name.
The primary reason Utah wasn’t able to adopt the “Yeti” moniker was the fact that the latter sells merchandise emblazoned with its logo, which had the potential to create confusion despite the distinctly separate realms—operating a hockey team and selling coolers and insulated drinkware—where the two brands primarily operate.
The aforementioned hockey bag brand also sells shirts and other items emblazoned with the phrase “Mammoth Hockey,” and according to ESPN, it has responded to the lawsuit it was hit with by filing an injunction that could prevent the NHL team from selling merch until the issue is settled in court.
The brand released a statement outlining its position, saying:
“Mammoth Hockey argues that the Utah Mammoth knew of its long-standing use of the mark but never sought an agreement, unlike with other brands whose names were considered, including Yeti, when similar conflicts arose.”
The matter is complicated when you consider it reportedly contacted the Mammoth about a potential collaboration and publicly threw its support behind the rebrand on social media before things turned hostile. It also never officially filed for a federal trademark, which is not a requirement to stake a claim but would have significantly boosted its argument.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.