OK, let’s get serious about this serious business of seriously naming Utah’s serious new NHL team. No more fooling around. According to a whole lot of folks, this is the most important matter in Utah sports these days.
And as former Jazz player Greg Foster once so famously put it when talking about the team needing to hit the throttle hard when the NBA playoffs came around, back when the Jazz actually made the playoffs: “It’s nut-cutting time.” That reference, I’m told, had nothing to do with castrating sheep or any other critters, or cutting the bolts off the sides of a ship’s hull in the final stages of construction, and everything to do with collecting nuts at the end of the fall season, before the animals wandered off with them all or before they were buried in the first layer of winter ice.
Where were we?
Ah, yes, ice, and Utah’s name for its team that skates on it. We’ve all bandied about a hundred ideas, thousands of them, some serious, some middling, some on the far edge of lunacy. Although the Utah Lunatics hasn’t really shown up on any lists that I’ve seen. We’ll do away with the goofiness now and get right down to the leading number of candidates, the ones that have been trademarked recently by a certain power center, for what the durn name should be.
Utah Ice — Utah might be the winter sports capital of the world, or at least of the United States, and while Ice has a nice frigid feel to it, it’s too redundant. The team skates on ice, so naming the team after the surface upon which it plays seems a bit redundant. It’d be like naming a football team “Turf” or “Gridiron,” or a basketball team “Hardwood,” or a baseball team “Diamond.” Nobody would do that because it just doesn’t work.
Utah Yetis — This seems to be a popular one, but there are just a couple of hangups. The first is, this was once the mascot’s name for the Colorado Avalanche, and that’s a no-go. Second, if my research is correct, Yeti refers to the hairy mountain beast that hangs out in the Himalayas, better known in this country as an Abominable Snowman. What exactly does a legend from Tibet have to do with the Beehive State? Nothing.
Utah Outlaws — Granted, that’s a tough name and the possibilities for a logo might be pretty darn cool. But does Utah’s hockey team really want to be named after criminals? People known for ignoring and breaking the rule of law? You might as well name the team the Politicians.
Utah Venom — Yes, there are seven different kinds of rattlesnakes living in the state, and that scares the bejeebers out of me when I go for a hike in the mountains with the family dog or even for a walk around the block. Saw a dead rattler in the middle of a neighborhood road just last summer. Saw two on a freaking golf course. They say you can have your dog trained to avoid getting bit, but if people struggle to stay away from such poisonous serpents, not sure how Rags and Fido, even if trained, would safely react. Does Utah really want the image of a snake on its hockey team, on its team gear — flags, pennants, blankets, T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, pajamas? Who wants your sleep or your kids’ sleep disrupted by night terrors on account of images of sidewinders slithering all over your face after hockey games? Not me.
Utah Fury — What are Utahns furious about? Looked up the strict definition of fury and it read: “Intense, disordered, and often destructive rage.” Really, is that what we want? Secondary meanings were: “any of the avenging deities in Greek mythology who torment criminals” — oh, like Outlaws? — “and inflict plagues.” We’ve had enough plagues around here lately. Nobody wants to stir images of, say, the Utah COVID. Also: “an avenging spirit, especially a spiteful woman” — c’mon, folks, we’re better than that — or “extreme fierceness or violence.” How about the Utah Brutality or the Utah Slaughterers. No and no.
Utah Mammoth — It’s awkward and clumsy. An extinct hairy elephant.
Utah Hockey Club or Utah HC —This hammers the idea that nobody in Utah is smart or creative enough to come up with a real name. That doesn’t make the state look unique, it makes it look dumb, like the pioneers — and subsequently their offspring — ran out of ideas as they crossed the plains to get here.
Utah Blizzard — I understand that this ties in with the idea of snow, something we need in order to, you know, live and survive around here, water being the wellspring of life in the desert and all, regardless of how inconvenient it can be for driving conditions from November to May, and it perpetuates the double-Z theme initiated with the Jazz — call ‘em the Blizz — and that could be a good thing or a bad. Still haven’t been able to fully embrace the idea of another team name that a) goes all in on the kitsch of the two Z’s, and b) is in the singular, not the plural. I’ll take Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh, my, over the Heat and the Thunder and, yes, the Jazz.
Utah Fill-In-the-Blanks — Since we still don’t know what the name will really end up being, and since the names that have been trademarked might yet be a bit of a ruse, guess and guess quickly because you know what time it is? Yeah, you do … it’s time to collect all the nuts. The Utah Nuts? Hard to crack, but, no, don’t even go there.
