Smith Entertainment Group announced Wednesday that it will conduct another survey to determine the name and branding of its NHL team. Two of the proposed names came from previous surveys, while the third is new.

The names are:

  • Utah Hockey Club
  • Utah Mammoth
  • Utah Wasatch

Each name has a corresponding logo and jersey design, which are included in the survey.

The logos for “Utah Hockey Club” and “Utah Wasatch” are identical, both featuring the head of a mythical snow creature, such as a yeti, in the shape of a mountain range.

The “Utah Mammoth” logo features the head of a mammoth.

All three designs use the same color palette that the team uses now, which it calls mountain blue, salt white and rock black.

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“We could very easily just go out there and choose a name, but Ryan and Ashley (Smith) made this commitment that hockey is a community asset, and they wanted to do something that’s never been done in the history of professional sports, which is invite fans to be part of this incredibly iterative and exciting process to help pick a name,” said Mike Maughan, an executive at SEG.

The survey, which has already been taken by Utah HC players, media members and SEG employees, also asks questions pertaining to the person’s likelihood to buy merchandise with each logo and how many games the person has attended this season.

Maughan said this could be the final survey, though SEG is open to conducting further research if necessary.

How to vote on the Utah Hockey Club’s new name

The voting will be conducted exclusively at the next four Utah HC home games. Those games are:

  • Jan. 29 vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins
  • Jan. 31 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets
  • Feb. 2 vs. the St. Louis Blues
  • Feb. 4 vs. the Philadelphia Flyers

Voting will be done on iPads stationed around the Delta Center to protect the images shown in the survey. As such, fans will be asked to put their phones away and SEG employees will monitor each person taking the survey.

This survey will not be open to those who do not attend any of those games.

Maughan is confident that SEG can achieve a 95% confidence interval with “a much smaller number (of survey participants) than people think.” He anticipates having at least 15,000 fans at each of the next four games.

Why won’t Utah HC be called the ‘Yeti’?

According to Maughan, the team was not able to secure trademark rights to “Yeti” or “Yetis,” which are proprietary to the Yeti cooler company.

Maughan said the struggle came about because the Yeti cooler company owns the trademarks to use that name for branding on all sorts of merchandise. It would have been fine to have it as a team name, but they would not have been able to sell shirts, hoodies, cups or a number of other items.

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SEG tried to enter into a coexistence agreement with the Yeti cooler company to be able to use the name, but Maughan said Yeti decided against it.

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“At the end of the day, their leadership made the decision that they didn’t want to have that coexistence agreement,” Maughan said.

Will there be any legal issues with these names?

Similar trademark questions have risen about the name “Mammoth,” as the Colorado Mammoth, a professional lacrosse team in Denver, already sell the same type of merchandise that blocked the team from bearing the “Yeti” name.

“As you go into this trademark process, you realize that there is no name — other than a made-up name — that doesn’t have some trademark conflict," Maughan said. “We have an incredible team that’s been working on all of these names for many months and we’re confident in the path we have for any of these names that are part of this list.”

When will the Utah Hockey Club choose a team name?

The official team name and branding will not be revealed until after the conclusion of the current hockey season.

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