A Mammoth Announcement?

This story may have broken last week when the Utah Hockey Club's YouTube page revealed a little more than it should have, but the franchise officially let the cat out of the bag today. Or, rather, the mammoth out of the bag as the Utah Hockey Club are now officially the Utah Mammoth! There were possibly names that could have been better, but the 13-month process to choose a name that saw 850,000 ballots cast by fans on the names is finally over. The Smith Entertainment Group announced that the Mammoth will rumble onto the NHL scene next season!

"When it came to naming the team, we did something unprecedented - going through four rounds of community voting, including getting feedback not only on potential names but also on potential logos," Utah owners Ryan and Ashley Smith said in a statement. "The community chose the Utah Mammoth brand, and it stands as a symbol of who we are, where we came from, and the unstoppable force we're building together."

For those wondering, mammoth fossils have been found across the state of Utah as the once-giant pachyderms roamed the northern areas of North America. It should be noted that a complete bull mammoth skeleton was discovered in Huntington Canyon in the Manti La-Sal National Forest in 1988, and is now housed at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum. Clearly, there's enough natural history for "mammoth" to be a fitting team name.

You might be wondering why the team optethed for the singular "mammoth" as opposed to the correct plural form as "mammoths". According to the team, "Mammoth" was chosen over "Mammoths" because "it symbolizes one team, all-in and all of Utah". Marketing people everywhere just cheered loudly with that flimsy justification, but it may actually sound better than the plural form of the word. It's not correct and it certainly annoyed a lot of people, but say it out loud - "Utah Mammoth" actually sounds better than "Utah Mammoths".

The jerseys won't see major changes which should keep fans happy.

As you can see, the black uniform gets the logo treatment and has the state of Utah patch added to the shoulder whereas the road jersey gets the mammoth logo added to the shoulders while keeping the diagonal "Utah" lettering. There isn't much more that changed, so anyone who has a black diagonal "Utah" jersey won't look out of place in the Delta Center next season. There simply will be more mammoth imagery around those fans, but the jerseys remain clean and simple.

The logo, seen at the top of this article, is made up of a pile of imagery that represents Utah. The top of the mammoth head is designed to look like the snow-capped Wasatch Mountain Range. The "mountain" on the left side of the mammoth logo is the shape of the state Utah with an "M" at the bottom in blue for "Mammoth". The curved tusk is in the shape of the letter "U" for Utah, and that leads to the new rallying cry that the Mammoth will invoke at games and on social media all summer and into next season of "Tusks Up!"

The remaining alternate logos and wordmark can be seen below.

The middle logo is what will be seen on the shoulder of the home jersey while the U-Tusk and wordmark will be used in other marketing. The font used by the Mammoth appears to be the same as last season based on the angled horizontal lines on the "A" and "H" in Utah. It looks like Utah is using the "it ain't broke, don't fix it" idea.

Despite the team wanting to be the Yetis, the Yeti Cooler Company would not budge on their trademarked name, forcing the Utah Hockey Club to pivot to another name. The original name choices of "Blizzard", "Utah HC", "Mammoth", "Outlaws", and "Venom" were thought to be back in play, but the team apparently narrowed the choices to "Utah Hockey Club", "Mammoth", or "Wasatch" in January despite the popularity among fans for "Outlaws" as an option.

The club noted that popularity, though, and swapped "Wasatch" out for "Outlaws" as fans went to tablets in the Delta Center to cast their votes electronically for one of those three names. Ultimately, Mammoth became the winner in the fan vote, and the Utah Hockey Club received clearance from Kroenke Sports and Entertainment to use the name "Mammoth" as they saw no name conflict with the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League.

The NHL has entered the prehistoric era with the Mammoth being added to the mix, and Utah will be looking for their newly-named squad to rumble to the playoffs next season. Before that happens, though, they'll make the fourth-overall pick, marking the first time we get to see the Mammoth at the NHL Entry Draft! Tusks up!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!