KEY POINTS
- A new poll reveals the name people prefer for Utah’s NHL team.
- The statewide survey didn’t find a clear winner, but one name nudged ahead of the others.
- The poll shows the Utah Hockey Club appears to be gaining fans as the season goes on.
The Utah Hockey Club has made a name for itself with its spirited play during its first season in Salt Lake City even without a permanent name.
With 21 games to go in the regular season, the team is making a push for the NHL playoffs, something the former Arizona Coyotes missed the past four years. And even as Utah HC establishes its identity in the league, franchise owner Smith Entertainment Group continues to mull what to call the team on a permanent basis.
SEG narrowed the list to three finalists from six earlier this year: Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth and Utah Outlaws.
If Utahns had their druthers, they would go with Outlaws, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll. But it’s by no means a majority and close among all three candidates.
The survey of 822 Utah adults found 37% favor Outlaws and, perhaps surprisingly, 34% chose Utah Hockey Club and 29% like Mammoth.
HarrisX Interactive conducted the statewide survey Feb. 18-25. It has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
To break down those results a little more, 42% of men preferred Outlaws, 10 points higher than women, 37% of whom made Utah Hockey Club their top choice.
As for age groups, those 18-34 like Outlaws; 35-49 chose Mammoth, though Outlaws was a close second; 50-64 picked Outlaws, and nearly half of those over 65 went with Utah Hockey Club.
While this is supposed to be a sports story, the poll gleans all kinds of demographic information from respondents, including political leanings.
And this age of political division was reflected in the results for the name of a hockey team: 40% of self-identified Republicans chose Outlaws, while 40% of self-identified Democrats prefer Mammoth, the top choice for both. (Curious since the GOP mascot is an elephant.)
It would have been interesting if politically independent respondents in the poll had made Utah Hockey Club their top choice, but they chose Outlaws over Utah HC, though not by much.
Oh, and Trump voters favor Outlaws; Harris voters Utah Hockey Club.
Not Yeti
In January, SEG abandoned half of the finalists as determined by online voting last year due to trademarks issues, including Yeti, which many saw as the odds-on favorite.
The team filed trademark applications for the final six names — Utah Blizzard, Utah Mammoth, Utah Outlaws, Utah Hockey Club, Utah Venom and Utah Yeti — with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last year.
Among those, Yeti or Yetis seemed to have risen to the top as the preferred choice, but the team was not able to secure trademark rights to those names because they are proprietary to the Yeti outdoor brand. Utah could have used the name, but would not have been able to sell shirts, hoodies, cups or a number of other items.
Smith Entertainment Group tried to reach a deal with the cooler company to use the name, but Mike Maughan, an SEG executive, said in January that Yeti decided against it.
“At the end of the day, their leadership made the decision that they didn’t want to have that coexistence agreement,” Maughan said.
Outlaws ride again
The team launched a survey for fans at four consecutive home games in late January/early February with two of the six finalists — Utah Mammoth and Utah Hockey — and a name not previously floated — Utah Wasatch. SEG dropped Wasatch after the first game and brought back Outlaws based on a large amount of fan feedback.
The voting wrapped up Feb. 4, but the team has not revealed the results.
Chris Armstrong, president of hockey operations, told the Deseret News earlier that the team will continue to involve the community in the final stages of the naming and branding process and is on track to announce a permanent name and identity before the 2025-26 season.
Among the three remaining names, Mammoth had the most run in social media polls conducted by local reporters, getting about 70% of the vote across the board. Outlaws came in next at 25%, with Utah Hockey Club lagging at 5%.
The social media and Deseret News/Hinckley Institute polls reached different audiences. It’s likely those who voted in the online survey are hockey fans, while the Deseret News poll queried Utahns statewide, fans or not.
Profiling Utah hockey fans
The new poll also gauged fan interest in the NHL team, and the club appears to be on the rise.
According to the survey, 27% of Utahns follow the team very or somewhat closely, while 31% don’t follow closely and 41% aren’t fans at all.
Those numbers shifted slightly from a late November/early December poll that found 25% very or somewhat closely follow the club since it started regular season play last October. That survey also found 30% are not following closely and 45% not at all.
Among those polled in the latest survey, 11% say they have attended a game. Another 33% say they haven’t but plan to, while 55% have not and don’t plan to.
The poll results provided some insight into the demographics of Utah Hockey Club fans.
Utahns in the 35 to 49 age group had the highest percentage of those who follow the team closely at 35%, slightly higher than those age 18 to 34 at 33%, according to the survey. Just less than 20% of Utahns over age 50 follow the team.
More men than women follow the Utah team at 32% and 23%, respectively. Both of those numbers are up from the previous poll. According to NHL research, 37% of hockey fans are female, including an incredible 26% growth in that demographic since 2016, per a 2022 Associated Press story.
Interest in the club is higher among urban residents than those in the suburbs and rural areas, the poll showed. It’s also higher among college graduates, people who have children and those who make more than $100,000.
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