ARIZONA COYOTES
Jan 30, 2025, 6:10 PM | Updated: 6:50 pm
FILE – The Utah Hockey Club logo is seen on the helmet of center Nick Schmaltz (8) during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Minnesota Wild, Dec. 20, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn, file)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Matt Krohn, file)
BY
Arizona Sports
The former Arizona Coyotes franchise, now the Utah Hockey Club, has chosen three names for fans to vote on for their permanent team name.
Not making the list is the fan favorite “Yeti” or “Yetis” name. The Utah Hockey Club filed for a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to The Associated Press, that was rejected on Jan. 9. The “Yeti” name in relation to the hockey team would have confused the majority of people with the Yeti brand. Thus, Yeti and the Utah Hockey Club could not reach an agreement of coexistence with branding and merchandising.
The final three names up for consideration were Utah Mammoth, Utah Hockey Club and Utah Wasatch.
After Wednesday night’s first day of voting, Utah decided that the Wasatch name was not as popular to the crowd as they thought.
On Thursday, the team announced that they would be switching the option of Utah Wasatch to Utah Outlaws after the first round of voting.
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
For the next three home games (voting started on Wednesday night against Pittsburgh) fans at the Delta Center can vote on their favorite name on an iPad. The next three home games are on Jan. 31 versus Columbus, Feb. 2 versus St. Louis and Feb. 4 versus Philadelphia.
The initial thought to use the Wasatch name was to still get across the idea behind the fans’ wishes of the Yeti, a mythical creature that lives up in the Himalayan mountains. The Wasatch Mountains run along the east side of the Salt Lake Valley.
“We wanted to honor this idea people had for a mythical snow creature like the Yeti and bring a very Utah-centric approach to it,” Smith Entertainment Group executive Mike Maughan said in an article by AP’s John Coon. “Because we have the Wasatch Mountains, because we have the Wasatch Front, we have so many different iterations or ways we can do it. We wanted to honor the sentiment of one of those top names of the last iteration (of fan voting) while also including a Utah-centric version of it.”
A unique feature is that when fans click to vote on their favorite name, it will reveal logos, jerseys and branding for that particular choice.
The permanent team name will be revealed ahead of the Utah Hockey Club’s 2025-26 home opener.
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The former Arizona Coyotes franchise, now the Utah Hockey Club, has chosen three names for fans to vote on for their permanent team name.
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