So let's get this straight. It's taken roughly eight months to find out that the Arizona Coyotes blundered their way to Salt Lake City, screwed around with no team nickname at all ("'Utah Hockey Club' my self-righteous arse" seems a helpful phrase in this context), and after all that, we find out that they can't use the obvious choice "Yeti" because those corporate swine with the camping equipment and highfalutin' drinking vessels are claiming copyright infringement? We've sat through 50 games of them playing mediocre hockey (24th of 32 teams, barely better than the Detroit Red Wings) in a glorified closet and a collective alias and now we might not get Utah Yeti?
Hardly worth the bother of caring any more now, is it? Might as well dress them in mauve and pewter uniforms without names or numbers and call them the Utah Undifferentiated Latter-Day None Of Your Business Blandburgers, if that's what we're going to get.
It's not that the NotYetYeti didn’t try, mind you. They just ran into the tight-asses at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and their corporate masters at Yeti, the expensive camping equipment company, who see too much potential confusion in commingling the hockey team and the thermoses.
To which we say, "So? Buy 'em off. Make them an offer they can't refuse. Sell them a piece of the team. Let them rent out Michael Kesselring for children's parties and Cabela's openings. Buy the company outright. Buy all the outlets that sell their stuff and put 'em out of business. We have just the people in the White House who understand this kind of high-level/low-grade commerce. This is bigger than coolers.
We have held to this notion since the team busted in Glendale and was spirited across state lines to mitigate against further humiliation in Arizona, as evidenced by company favorite and all-around big thinker Comrade Theisen and the other one. Yeti is the only thing the team can be named if it ever intends to make its mark in a state with so little else to suggest it. The people want this. The team wants this. America wants this, damn it.
Now, as we understand it, the matter is not yet settled. There are still three months left for team owner Ryan Smith to figure out a way to solve this problem and right this pending wrong. And because he is worth $2.2 billion, making him the 1,496th richest person on the whole decomposing planet, he has spare cash salted away in one of his spare ski lodges for just such an emergency. And this is an emergency. We cannot as a society settle for Mammoth, Venom, Jell-O, or any other absurd option. Utah's state bird is the California gull and one of their state foods is the Spanish sweet onion, for God's sake. They need something that is their own, even if the copyright people say it’s already someone else’s.
So, it's time for bribery. Give the Seiders brothers, who founded and own Yeti, something that our new governmental oligarchs understand and support: a one-sided deal that the Securities and Exchange Commission can pretend to monitor. Give the boys their own arena suite. Give 'em all the suites. Give them exclusive advertising rights in the arena. Make season-ticket holders tattoo the brand on their stomachs. Make them name their newborn children Yeti, or Yetette. Whatever gets the deal done.
Or Smith can hold tight to his principles and refuse to cave. He can show us that he cannot be trifled with or belittled. And in three years, when we all forget who they are because Smith pretended to be happy with Hockey Club, Ice Mopes, or some similar abomination, he can sell them to some fly-by-night hedge-fund nitwit who’ll move them to Houston, Halifax, or for all we care, Hell. The time is now, Boots. Pull your wallet and your thumb out and do the only thing we can accept. Cave for the good of company, and hope that Karel Vejmelka can one day tell his children with pride, "I am a Yeti." Because in the end, aren't we all?
