It remains to be seen what the Utah Hockey Club's eventual nickname will be, but it reportedly won't be "Yeti" or "Yetis."

ESPN's Greg Wyshynski reported Wednesday the team will not move forward with those two nicknames as possibilities even though there was a time when "Yetis" was "widely assumed to be the franchise's eventual nickname" before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected names and logos submitted by the club.

Instead, the team will have an in-arena fan vote during its next four home games where those in attendance can choose between the three finalists of the Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth and Utah Wasatch.

As Wyshynski explained, the USPTO rejected the application for the nickname "Yetis" due to the "likelihood of confusion" it could have caused with other companies such as Yeti Coolers LLC.

"We engaged deeply with Yeti Cooler Company and worked with them over a process to see if there was some coexistence agreement that we could engage with them on," Mike Maughan of Smith Entertainment Group said. "They have a unique and strong trademark on anything published Yeti or Yetis. We did not have a coexistence agreement with Yeti and therefore have decided to move on from that name."

So the team will move forward and let the fans decide, although Maughan said this may not be the final fan vote of the season.

Utah Hockey Club would be a continuation of the name the team is using in its first season of existence. President of hockey operations Chris Armstrong said the team always intended for the temporary nickname to be part of the ongoing conversation regarding a permanent one.

As for Mammoth, that was one of the six finalists from a fan vote held last year.

Wasatch—which is a reference to Utah's Wasatch mountain range—was not, although Wyshynski noted it is basically a replacement for "Yeti" since Maughan said the mascot would be a "mythical snow creature in the form of a Yeti."

Fans will also vote on two logos with one designed to be used if the Mammoth nickname is chosen and the other to be used for either Hockey Club or Wasatch since it is a Yeti-like creature.

Utah is a solid 21-21-7 in its first season of existence and sits in sixth place in the Central Division. It is still within striking distance of the postseason with 49 points, which is six points behind the Calgary Flames for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Yet it will have to play better than it has of late to be a factor in that playoff race.

After a promising 16-11-5 start, Utah has just five wins in the last 17 games. Next up is a Wednesday home game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, which will be the first contest fans can start voting for the new nickname.