Mammoth vs. Mammoth: NHL Team Strikes First in Trademark Feud

The NHL’s Utah Mammoth are seeking their first win with their new team name off the ice.

The club is suing Mammoth Hockey, a line of high-end hockey bags, asking the court to resolve a trademark dispute. The 16-page suit filed Friday in U.S. district court in Utah lists the ownership’s LLCs, Uyte, and Smith Entertainment Group Hockey, as plaintiffs.

The suit claims the bag company initially “voiced public support” for the new team branding and even reached out about a potential collaboration. But in June, the complaint says, the company “reversed course” by claiming a violation of its trademark rights and “recently threatened litigation in some unknown forum, at some unknown time.” The team is striking first, petitioning the court to make a trademark ruling under the U.S. Declaratory Judgment Act.

Jazz owner Ryan Smith bought the Arizona Coyotes in 2024 and moved them to Salt Lake City, where they competed last season as the Utah Hockey Club, finishing sixth in the Western Conference’s Central Division. In May, the team announced, following a lengthy fan-input process, that its official name would be the Mammoth.

How It All Started

The complaint includes a screenshot from June 2024 when Mammoth Hockey posted about the six finalist team names for the Utah club. 

“We’re pretty partial to this one,” the company account posted, along with a winking emoji and a red circle around “Mammoth.” The filing also includes a screenshot where one of Mammoth Hockey’s cofounders, Erik Olson, reached out to a member of the NHL team in April 2025 on LinkedIn, saying “it would be cool to talk about a possible collaboration” if Mammoth became the team’s new name.

“For example, it could be a good marketing story for the Utah team to tell if we produced the team bags. By Mammoth, for Mammoth!” Olson wrote in the screenshot.

According to the suit, attorneys for Mammoth Hockey then sent a letter to the NHL club in June 2025 claiming trademark violation and demanding they stop using the Mammoth moniker, and sent another letter the next month saying it could lead to consumer confusion. 

The complaint states the bag company never filed a trademark registration for “Mammoth,” leaving their claim to the name on their common law rights. But because the logos have different colors, designs, and uses, the suit says they are two distinct properties that wouldn’t confuse the bag company’s hockey-literate customers, who “readily understand the difference between a well-known professional hockey team and the vendors who provide equipment for amateur players.”

“UTAH MAMMOTH and the NHL believe strongly that we have the right to use the name UTAH MAMMOTH under federal and state law, and that our use will not harm the defendant or its business in any way,” SEG wrote in a statement to Front Office Sports.

Mammoth Hockey has said it is “highly likely that consumers will confuse the two marks, risking our client’s business and operations, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Hockey enthusiasts who pledge support for a team other than Utah Mammoth will not purchase goods from our client due to the consumer’s mistaken belief that such a purchase would support a rival team.” 

“I can tell you that Mammoth Hockey intends to vigorously defend the litigation recently commenced against it by Utah Mammoth of the National Hockey League and protect its longstanding trademark used in connection with the hockey goods it has manufactured and sold for the past ten years,” Olson said in an email to FOS.

Alexandra Roberts, an expert on trademark law and professor of law and media at Northeastern University, tells FOS that waiting for a declaratory judgment could extend into the NHL season, but a coexistence agreement or other kind of settlement could be reached sooner. “This does seem like the kind of thing the two companies could work out for themselves,” she says.