Utah Hockey Club ‘really proud' of inaugural jersey design with Fanatics

The Utah Hockey Club hopes to make its first jersey available to the public as early as November, an impressive accomplishment considering the tight timeline since the NHL established the new franchise April 18.

“We want to make it our No. 1 priority to get our jersey in the hands of fans as quickly as possible so that they can wear it proudly and enjoy it for as much of our inaugural season as possible,” Utah president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong said Friday.

Utah knows there is high demand for the jersey, which has the letters “U-T-A-H” stepping down the front, the colors Rock Black, Salt White and Mountain Blue, and a special meaning. The team’s brand identity likely will evolve next season.

“This is truly a moment in time, and in many respects, [the jersey will be] a collector’s item,” Armstrong said.

The development and production of the jersey has been a complex process, illustrating the challenges Utah has embraced since acquiring the Arizona Coyotes hockey assets and building a new team in a new market on the fly.

How hard is it to create an NHL jersey?

Well, consider that it is usually an 18-month effort that includes design, trademark clearance, procurement of raw materials, and finally production of game and retail versions. Thanks to components like the crest, a hockey jersey is more difficult to manufacture than, say, a football jersey.

Brian Jennings, NHL senior executive vice president and chief branding officer, said the League issues a “change intention letter” to all NHL teams in March. If a team wants to change any part of its uniform, it must inform the League, and it must have its choice of design firm -- Fanatics or an outside company -- approved in April.

A team starting the process this spring would have been doing so for 2025-26, but Utah had to do it for 2024-25, giving the team a year’s less time. The team decided to use a temporary brand identity for 2024-25 while developing a permanent one for 2025-26.

Everything was done on computers, and there wasn’t enough time to make a prototype jersey. To see everything with their own eyes and put it all together as soon as possible, representatives from Utah, the NHL, Fanatics and the creative studio Doubleday & Cartwright met in a boardroom at the League offices in New York on May 6. They held swatches and tried different combinations, using safety pins to attach them to a blank black jersey.

First, the team decided to put “UTAH” on the front of the jersey. Then, it decided to have the letters step down rather than march across, and it decided on a wordmark (or font).

The colors were critical. Utah wanted a color palette that was unique and would be the cornerstone of the brand identity’s evolution. The team originally used one custom color it called Arctic Blue. But to move faster using raw materials already in stock, the team switched to what it now calls Mountain Blue -- Pantone 292, which the Florida Panthers and Montreal Canadiens have used for alternate jerseys.

“It was the closest color match to the custom color that we created,” Armstrong said.

Further complicating matters was the 2024 NHL Draft. Utah wanted its prospects to put on real NHL jerseys at Sphere Las Vegas, so the team approved a partial design May 6 so a few jerseys could be rushed into production in time for June 28-29.

The prospects wore black jerseys with the “UTAH,” number system and colors, but no trim.

“It became a really sentimental thing for the players that we drafted, because that jersey was never made available for sale,” Armstrong said. “It’s truly a one of one, and only our draftees will ever own one.”

Utah approved the full home and away jersey designs May 14. The team had to coordinate them with helmets, gloves, pants and socks along the way too.

“The jersey is the jersey, but it’s part of a system,” Armstrong said. “You’re rushing to make these determinations but also have to factor how are all the pieces going to pull together at the end for both the home and away jersey.”

When Armstrong received the finished jersey for the first time a few weeks ago, he called executives into a boardroom to show them and sent pictures to owner Ryan Smith.

“Opening it out of the box, I had no idea how it was actually going to look physically,” Armstrong said. “I had only ever seen it on [the computer]. Very pleased at how it translated into the physical world. … It was one of those signature moments where it all started to become very real.”

The Fanatics Authentic Pro jerseys for all NHL teams are manufactured at the same factory in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, that has made NHL jerseys for almost 50 years. Utah was able to receive jerseys in time for the team to play in a rookie tournament, the preseason and the regular season.

Fans will have a wide selection of Utah apparel and accessories while Utah, the NHL and Fanatics race to produce jerseys for retail.

“I think we delivered a clean, crisp, classic home and away jersey to our fans and our players for Season One that we’re really proud of under the timelines that we had to put it together, and quite frankly, we don’t expect we’ll change that much over time because of how positive the response has been,” Armstrong said. “I think we can continue to refine, evolve and improve them, but at the core, we’re really happy with where we got to for this first season.”