Utah Set to Go With Mammoth? A Name as Cool as the Ice Age

The Utah Hockey Club may no longer be participating in this season’s festivities, but focus on the program in not absent.

Fans looking forward to year #2 of the NHL in Utah are anxiously anticipating free agency, the draft and oh yes, an official name to be known as from here on out.

With The Arizona Coyotes assets being purchased little more than a year ago, the newest team in the NHL was forced to develop rather quickly.

Color schemes, facility arrangements and so on were announced rather quickly but some things simply take more time.

Apparently the official moniker of the team was one of those things.

The “Hockey Club” insignia was announced as a placeholder and used through the entirety of the season while fans put in the work with multiple voting sessions and polls to determine the next name of the franchise.

All those votes submitted led to a final three names (Outlaws, Mammoth or staying with Hockey Club)

This came after much debate and controversy such as the worry of confusing a hockey team with drinkware.

Looking at you Yeti.

The name was set to be announced in the “coming months” before the start of the 2025-2026 season.

Yet, due to a potential “leak” the Club may be looking for a “woolly elephant” sized can of flex tape to fix their recent blunder.

The teams official YouTube channel was changed to @UtahMammoth seemingly prematurely last night and some eagle-eyed fans caught it rather quickly.

The event has made it all but official that “Mammoth” is likely the direction in which the team heads and I'm here to remind you why it just works for Utah.

One day fans were bantering about Yetis Vs Outlaws like it was team Jacob or team Edward, and the next day Mammoth fell from the sky like a meteor to join the fray.

The concept of a prehistoric creature isn’t new to sports (see Toronto Raptors or Nashville Predator’s Saber Tooth Tiger logo) but isn’t overused, so it feels fresh enough to the sporting world. (I know there is a lacrosse team in Colorado, but this is a positive article.)

A Mammoth is a great selection for a multitude of reasons, as the whole ‘Ice Age” dynamic plays precisely into what NHL clubs try to represent (Ice, Cold, Frigid).

Despite not being a predator, a Mammoth was a beast of an animal.

Intimidating in size at about 13 feet tall and nearly 13,000 pounds on average, a Mammoth was an absolute unit.

If you might say, “well that’s just a hairy elephant”, it even adds to the intimidation factor.

That hair could get up to three feet long per National Geographic, acting as a protectant from outside elements.

If you don’t think that helps the cause for intimidation, it makes it easy to form a mascot the kids will love.

The logo possibilities are limitless, but you can most definitely expect an emphasis on the beast’s tusks.

Per the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, the largest tusk ever found on Mammoth remains was 16 feet long.

Not to be confused with an Elephant tusk, Mammoth Tusk have a corkscrew-esque twist on them, upping how cool this thing really looks.

Imagine the dragon that was inserted behind the castle walls at Vegas games, now swap it out with a massive Mammoth head with massive twisting tusk glaring over a mountain range.

And despite what certain animated movies may tell you, Mammoths traveled in packs.

National Geographic Kids would tell you that those Herd’s often consisted of 15 members, only 5 off of how many players dress for an active NHL team.

Few sports place a greater emphasis on herd/team productivity than Hockey does, making the Herd aspect a gold mine as far as branding and mantra’s go.

Even if a Mammoth was separated from a herd, it would likely take a large pack of opponents to have a chance of felling the behemoth.

As you could guess, a caveman or two weren’t a threat to a Mammoth. They would need 20 or so more buddies to have a fighting chance.

No, it doesn’t hunt, it ate grass and plants, but there have to be few herbivores’ intimidating and powerful as a Mammoth.

Just because something is a herbivore doesn’t mean it can’t do damage. You want to face off with a Hippo? A Rhino? A Buffalo? Me neither.

Lastly, the reasoning why fans wanted to entertain the “Raptors” moniker applies to the Mammoth as well.

While there isn’t a thing such as the “Utah Mammoth” like there is with the Raptor, Utah has a heavy history in terms of paleontology, and there have been Mammoth remains found from Fillmore to Orem.

Out near Bryce Canyon, one of Utah’s largest lava tubes is named “Mammoth Cave”.

Small things, but certainly more applicable to Utah than something like “Yeti” was.

So now we wait and see, but I truly think “Mammoth” is a woolly cool name.