Greg Wyshynskiapr 30, 2025, 11:49 AM ET
Closegreg Wyshynski is a senior NHL writer at ESPN.
Utah Hockey Club officials did not confirm whether “Mammoth” was the new name after it allegedly leaked to the team’s official YouTube channel on Tuesday night.
Fans and media have noticed that channel handles have been changed from “@utahhockeyclub” to “@utahmammoth” on both the landing page and the URL. The channel was deactivated quickly and remained on Wednesday morning, but screenshots of the name change did not go viral.
The Utah Mammoth was one of three finalists featured in a fan vote at Delta Center to determine the permanent name of the team that played its first season in 2024-25 after Seg bought and moved on to the former Arizona Coyote franchise. Fans voted on iPads at stations around the arena, featuring names, logos and potential branding for each option.
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Originally, the three names voted were the Utah Mammoth, the Utah Hockey Club and Utah Wasatch.
The Mammoth won the Final Four in their first fan vote last year.
Utah HC executives will not confirm or deny that Mammoth will become the team’s new nickname.
Mike Morgan, executive at Utah HC owner Smith Entertainment Group, said on Wednesday, “The progress continues as fans explore all three name options selected as finalists. We look forward to sharing it with fans, as they announce their permanent names and identities ahead of the 25-26 NHL season.”
When asked to explain the questionable YouTube leak, Morgan simply says, “We’re on full well to announce our permanent name and identity before the 25-26 NHL season.”
One NHL source told ESPN that a team’s new name and logo revelation could come before the NHL draft in late June. This year’s draft is a “distributed” event. This means that teams make choices from their own sites rather than one central location. This opens the door for Utah to host an event in Salt Lake City with team officials around the draft.
In other Utah HC news, the team announced Wednesday that Utah HC and the Utah Jazz home Delta Center will undergo renovations to optimize hockey perspectives while maintaining the proximity of basketball fans while maintaining the proximity of the court using state-of-the-art retractable seating systems. This is a multi-year project that will also create a new main entrance and an outdoor plaza.
The first seating system accommodates a distribution of nearly 12 feet of elevation between the link and court end line, providing the perfect view for both the NBA and NHL. All seats in the bowl below will have full views of the ice at the start of next season. The team estimates that 400 seats are currently only able to display one goal net during the game.
The new hockey configuration adds capacity behind targets above and around the event tunnels north and south of the lower bowl, improving access to seats behind the board.
Once all renovations are complete, hockey seating capacity will increase from 11,131 to approximately 17,000. All seats in the top and bottom bowls are fully viewing both goals – and the basketball capacity will increase from 18,206 to 19,000 seats.
“The Delta Center was built for basketball. If you put ice sheet sizes at that venue at those site lines, the geometry doesn’t work. So we come up with a configuration for the riser system.
“We absolutely protect the basketball experience, but we’re creating a great hockey experience where every seat can see all the ice,” he said.
