After a mammoth undertaking of buying an NHL team, moving players, coaches and a full staff more than 600 miles and getting it all together in a matter of months before the puck dropped on a new season, it is perhaps a fitting identity that owners Ryan and Ashley Smith chose after rounds and rounds of fan voting.

They unveiled Utah Mammoth as the franchise's permanent, full-time name Wednesday, with a profiled logo of the ice age creature featuring nods to the shape of the state, its mountain range and the same light blue, black and white color scheme that quickly became synonymous with the team in its first season in Salt Lake City.

“Our fans made it very easy for us,” Ryan Smith said at a news conference at Delta Center celebrating the branding effort's competition after more than 850,000 votes were cast over the past 13 months. “Every single night we were doing the voting, Mammoth just started running away with it. ... And for us, it was like, ‘That’s it.’"

Mammoth replaces the 2024-25 placeholder name Utah Hockey Club, which was also one of the three finalists. Yeti was taken out of consideration when the cooler company bearing that name could not come to a copyright agreement with Utah ownership, and Wasatch — a reference to the state’s mountain range — was quickly replaced as an option by Outlaws.

The Mammoth are maintaining the road jerseys with UTAH diagonally down the front. The logo, along with mountains and a hidden “M” and more of what Smith called “Easter eggs,” also has a curved tusk that forms a “U.”

Mammoth fossils have been found throughout Utah, including a complete skeleton in Huntington Canyon in 1988. The team said “Tusks Up” will be its rallying cry.

“We uncovered a little bit of the mammoth history in this state,” Smith said. “It was daunting — of how close and tied and whether it was Lake Bonneville or Fairview, Utah, or Lake Powell and the size of the mammoth and how fast they go, it became like this really cool thing.”

Utah has an exciting summer ahead holding the fourth pick in the draft, the first phase of arena renovations taking place and more than $20 million in salary cap space for general manager Bill Armstrong to make a splash in free agency and trades. With young talent like captain Clayton Keller, budding star forward Logan Cooley, two-time Stanley Cup champion Mikhail Sergachev and emerging goaltender Karel Vejmelka, the Mammoth could contend for a playoff spot as soon as next season.

Sitting next to Commissioner Gary Bettman, Ashley Smith said the goal was to bring him back with more to celebrate.

“Next time, Stanley Cup," she told Bettman, who responded, “It would be my pleasure.” Bettman, who turns 73 in July, added, “When you win the Stanley Cup, I hope I’m still doing this to present it.”

Hockey in Utah has already been a win after Smith Entertainment Group bought the team previously known as the Arizona Coyotes from former owner Alex Meruelo and moved it to Salt Lake City. The Coyotes played in the Phoenix area since 1996 after moving there from Winnipeg, where the team was the original Jets.

“The first year has been almost mind-blowing in terms of how successful Utah and you and everybody in SEG has been,” Bettman said. “This has been the ultimate team effort for the ultimate team sport. And while you may be thrilled to have us, we’re thrilled to be part of Utah and are grateful.”

The rollout of Mammoth even included a fan holding a Stanley cup — lower-case “C” — Yeti coolers' biggest competition in that market. In the midst of a formative day in the organization's history, Ryan Smith almost seemed to want to manifest another one sometime in the future, not for a mug but the sport's most hallowed trophy.

“When we etch Utah Mammoth in Lord Stanley’s Cup," he said, "that’ll be a good one.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL