TORONTO, June 14, 2024 – The Utah Hockey Club is officially the team name for the Salt Lake-based NHL team’s inaugural 2024 season. The announcement came from Smith Entertainment Group on Thursday, June 14, along with a reveal of the logo and team jersey designs also posted to social media.
The Utah Hockey Club’s jersey colours will be “rock black,” “mountain blue” and “salt white,” aligning (loosely) with the team colours of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, also owned by Smith Entertainment Group.
Similar to the teams in the inaugural PWHL season, Utah’s long term name has not been chosen, so they are moving forward as the “Utah Hockey Club” for the upcoming 2024-25 season.
New name narrowed down to Six Choices
The hockey club HAS narrowed the field of choices for their new name and Utah Hockey Club is in the mix along with six other options selected by voters: Blizzard, Mammoth, Outlaws, Venom, and Yeti. Fan voting continues for a few more days, through June 20.
The Utah Hockey Club already has an established roster of players, of course, as the team was originally the Arizona Coyotes before being bought for $1.2 billion in April by Ryan Smith’s company, which also owns the Utah Jazz.
“Today is a monumental day for the state of Utah as we officially close on the establishment of a new NHL franchise,” said Ryan Smith. “The NHL has been incredible to work with throughout this process, providing us with invaluable guidance and support. We have a ton of work to do — training camp starts in less than 100 days — and could not be more excited about what’s to come.”
Utah’s jersey design and colour scheme, inspired slightly by the Utah Jazz (minus the purple), does seem somewhat similar to the Winnipeg Jets’ home and away look in terms of piping and colour scheme, as well as the colours of the original Hockey Night in Canada logo, but Utah’s “rock black” as opposed to navy blue sets it apart.
Meanwhile, it seems there is great interest in the NHL coming to Salt Lake City, as 34,000-plus fans have already made deposits for season tickets, although some of these Utah hockey enthusiasts will need to be waitlisted, as their arena, the Delta Center has a seating capacity of 20,000.
by Terry Lankstead
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