What’s the proper way to react to Utah Hockey Club’s finally getting around to announcing its permanent name on Wednesday? It left everyone, at least anyone who cares about hockey here and some who don’t, guessing for a full year what the name would be.
Satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, came with disclosure: Utah Mammoth it is.
Celebrate it, if you want. Even if you don’t want. The decision is done.
The Club might have dragged this thing out longer, as other new franchises have, were it not for the fact that that name had been inadvertently revealed via a change to the team’s YouTube channel handle, from @UtahHockeyClub to @UtahMammoth, a goof that might’ve hurried up the official unveiling.
It came as no big surprise, given that the team had previously whittled the candidate names down to just three — the Outlaws, the Mammoth, and Utah Hockey Club, even allowing fans to vote on their favored choice.
The reaction in this corner to Utah Mammoth? It‘s cool, cool enough.
On the plus side, the possibilities for a really badass, big-tusked logo were intriguing and, as it turned out, the club did not fall short there. On the one hand, you want a logo that is classic, not trendy, a logo that is somewhat menacing, but not so menacing that it‘ll scare the bejeebers out of young fans who might break out in tears every time they glance down to see what’s on their brand new authentic team jersey, the one Mom and Dad blew — or will blow — 300 or 400 bucks on. (Some gear is available right away, jerseys, however are yet to come for the public.)
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A Utah Mammoth banner is raised outside Delta Center in Salt Lake City on May 7, 2025. Smith Entertainment Group has announced that the Mammoth will be the new name for the former Utah Hockey Club.
Still, you don’t want some namby-pamby cartoon character highlighted that strikes no fear into the hearts of Golden Knights or Blackhawks or Kraken or Bruins. Hockey‘s a tough sport. You want a mascot to match.
Something substantial. Something with heft. Something unique. Something signifying strength and stubbornness. Something resilient. Something that conjures communal prestige, power and pride.
An extinct hairy elephant fills that bill darn-near perfectly. Mammoths are long gone now, but they lasted, according to estimates, thousands and thousands and millions of years, through harsh conditions that include ice ages. That’s good for hockey.
Another plus is that Mammoths — we’re capitalizing that word throughout here — really did roam the regions of Utah during the Pleistocene Epoch, or maybe the Miocene or the Helocene epochs — beats me, they lived in various places from 5 million years ago to 4,000 — and remains have been found at numerous sites around the state. I mean, what Utahn would want to throw their passion, their emotion and interest and money, behind a professional team that featured a name borrowed from another city, a name that had no real connection to or tradition in Utah? That would never happen, never fly, not successfully. … Um, yeah.
Where were we? Oh, but Utah cannot claim Mammoths just to itself. Apparently, these behemoths roamed hither and thither all over the globe, from parts of Europe to Asia to Africa to North America. They were here, there, everywhere. One thing is fairly certain, Mammoths lived before we humans were here, so there’s that.
You could wonder about the singular nature of the team name, Mammoth versus Mammoths. That leaves room to guess about whether the word Mammoth is referring to the old beast or to something simply large in size, something … you know, Mammoth.
If you look up the word, you get both definitions. Take it any which way you want, then. Perhaps the team is, too. Duality isn’t always a bad thing.
(SEG) The "Mountain Mammoth" mark that will serve as the team's primary branding.
While we’re on that subject, another question emerges: What kind of Mammoth are we talking about here? There were 10 different kinds.
The Woolly Mammoth and the Columbian Mammoth are the best known of the species, but there also were Steppe Mammoths, Pygmy Mammoths, among others.
Since you didn’t ask, Mammoths eventually died out, it is thought, due at least in part to climate change. Take that — and your political views — for what it‘s worth.
One last thing: Some scientists believe it would be possible to bring Mammoths back to life, all Jurassic Park-style, using cells found at well-preserved locations to re-engineer the mammals. Some experts believe that re-engineering would be a long shot, at best.
Either way, Utah Hockey Club just brought Mammoths — or Mammoth — back to life for Utahns and for the entire NHL.
Utah Mammoth is now a hockey team. Prefer it or not, go ahead and put a badge of honor on it, put a trophy on it, put a potted plant on it. It‘s cool enough and, yeah, it‘s yours.
