The Utah Hockey Club are introduced prior to playing against the Chicago Blackhawks at Delta Center on October 08, 2024 in Salt Lake City, Utah. This game is the first for the franchise in Utah following their relocation from Arizona. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY – With the deadline approaching for next year’s jersey designs and more permanent branding, the Utah Hockey Club has been busy finalizing their plans with the NHL.
According to NHL Insider Nicholas Cotsonika, following the board of Governors meeting this week, front office members and individuals from Utah’s ownership group met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and senior executive vice president of marketing and chief branding officer, Brian Jennings, to discuss their plans.
“We’re deep in the [jersey] design process for next season, which goes hand in glove with our brand identity and what we’re going to do there,” Armstrong told NHL.com.
“We’re all working within the timelines and trying to get creative about those to give ourselves as much runway to get all those pieces lined up properly.”
Generally, submitting a new jersey design is an 18-month process that begins in April and is not finalized until the following season.
Due to the nature of their sudden relocation to Utah and throwing together an NHL season in the span of five months, Utah was granted some lenience in that area.
However, with that being said, Utah’s deadline is swiftly approaching to make things more permanent moving forward.
“I’d say we’re getting close to needing to make some decisions. I’d say early in the new year. Everybody’s tried their best to work flexibly — or away from hard and fast deadlines — because it is a complicated process, especially on the [intellectual property] side.
“Just making sure we’ve got everything lined up and buttoned up before we make any firm decisions,” Armstrong told NHL.com.
While the NHL and Fanatics will need the submissions shortly, the new designs likely won’t be unveiled to the general public until after the inaugural season.
With so much to do and so much attention on the team in their first year, Armstrong doesn’t want to take away any of the current spotlight with future branding.
“That’s what we’re thinking now,” Armstrong said. “We’ve been saying we don’t want to take the wind out of our sails on Season One.”
“We’ve got such a great response in our inaugural season and a lot of momentum, and we want the focus to continue to be on this inaugural season and the efforts our players are putting into making it a successful season. We don’t want to dominate that conversation with what we might be or not be next year. I think that’s important.”
As the newest franchise in the National Hockey League, the Utah Hockey Club absolutely nailed their original sweaters for the inaugural season.
Featuring a diagonal “Utah” on both sweaters complimented by the rock black, salt white and mountain blue, fans have quickly fallen in love with the new look.
But what does that mean for next season?
According to Armstrong, they won’t deviate much from the current jerseys aside from introducing whatever their new logo is onto one of them.
That means that the other will likely not change very much if it all and based on the fact that Armstrong has said they like to feature “Utah” on the road, that would likely mean the white sweater does not change.
Per Chris Armstrong,
The jerseys next season will be “substantially similar” to this season. There will be adjustments made and “one of them” will be adorned with their new logo.#UtahHC
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) November 15, 2024
“I would say substantially similar is where we are leaning right now based on the response that we’ve had. But there will be differences, there will be adjustments made. Obviously one of them will be adorned our logo which we land on…because of the feedback being as strong as it has been with these jerseys, we don’t want to dramatically shift the sands on them,” Armstrong said.
“This is about Utah, it’s for Utah, people have really connected with that season one identity, Utah across the front of the uniform so from our vantage point we want to make sure that’s a part of one of the jerseys. I think people can appreciate and speculate that when we’re away, we want to represent Utah,” Armstrong shared.
Shortly after the team was acquired by Smith Entertainment Group, a survey was released to fans with an opportunity to vote for their top favorite names.
These are the nicknames listed on the survey:
While nothing has been confirmed, both General Manager Bill Armstrong and forward Clayton Keller have weighed in on what they believe the team’s name will be.
Following the first round of the 2024 NHL Draft, Armstrong referenced the name Yeti when discussing Tij Iginla as their selection.
“When we hit pick five, that’s when we knew. That’s when we knew he would be a Utah Yeti, I think,” he said.
“I’m not allowed to pick the name. But I think the little kids in Utah vote about 25 times a day, so I think they got it,” Armstrong continued.
As for Keller, he mentioned the name Yeti at the NHL North American Players Media Tour during the preseason.
“It sounds like it’s going to be the Yeti, but I don’t know,” Keller said. “We’ll see what happens. Whatever they choose, I think it’ll be a good one.
The Utah Hockey Club will now return home for a single game homestand against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night. The game can be viewed on ESPN+, Hulu or Disney+. Fans can also tune in on air on the KSL Sports APP or on 97.5 and 1280 The Zone. Click here for the full schedule.
