Rob Gray/Imagn
The fate of an NHL hockey team could well be determined by…a massive cooler brand? Yes, that may sound dramatic. But it’s not untruthful! The Utah Hockey Club is currently in its inaugural season after moving to Salt Lake City from Phoenix, where it was previously known as the Arizona Coyotes.
As you can tell, the Utah Hockey Club does not currently have mascot, as evidenced by, y’know, Utah Hockey Club. They went full Washington Football Team. But like the Washington Football Team before it, Utah HC is in an active search to figure out a team mascot and new name!
On Sept. 30, the team announced that after 520,000-plus votes from fans, it had narrowed its name options down to the following: Utah Blizzard, Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth, Utah Outlaws, Utah Venom, and Utah Yeti. The overwhelming favorite was Utah Yeti, because cold and also who doesn’t love some good, old-fashioned alliteration?!
The club looked all set to move forward with the new name. But there was one, big, Yeti-sized problem. They couldn’t get the name trademarked.
YETI Cooler Brand Blocks Utah Hockey Club From Taking On New Nickname
Ryan Miller of KSL.com reports that “earlier this month, the trademark for ‘Utah Yetis’ was refused by the United States Patent and Trademark Office due to a ‘likelihood of confusion.'”
At first glance that seems odd. There are no other notable sports teams name the Yeti(s). However, the YETI brand of coolers and drinkware already holds patents on several fonts and styles of the YETI name.
“In the present case, the wording ‘Utah’ in the applied-for mark is merely descriptive of or generic for applicant’s goods. Thus, this wording is less significant in terms of affecting the mark’s commercial impression, and renders the wording ‘YETIS’ the more dominant element of the mark,” the United States Patent and Trademark Office determined.
And so it’s now back to the drawing board for the UTAH HC, which states that still intends to have a new team name by the start of the 2025-26 season. That name won’t be the Utah Yetis, however. Or, at least, it appears that it won’t be. What comes next is anybody’s guess.