It’s NHL time on Friday Funday, as we trace the origins of the newly named Utah Mammoth—the team formerly known as the Utah Hockey Club. Officially, it’s an expansion team, but the franchise really got its “start” from the Arizona Coyotes, which were once also the Phoenix Coyotes, originally. And even before that? The organization now going forward as the Mammoth was once the original Winnipeg Jets. Got that?

Yeah, we know it’s confusing. As we were watching the playoff game last night between the second incarnation of the Jets and the Dallas Stars, we found ourselves trying to explain to a non-hockey fan the origins of both franchises on the ice. After all the “new” Jets were once the Atlanta Thrashers, and the Stars were once the Minnesota North Stars, who absorbed/merged in the late 1970s with the Cleveland Barons.

And those Barons? Started out in the San Francisco Bay Area as the Golden Seals. See how insane this gets?

Let’s start over with the Mammoth: we love the nickname and the team imagery. Officially, the Utah organization will have no connection to the history of the original WHA Jets. That legacy remains in Phoenix for a subsequent/whenever expansion team yet to come which will inherit history, albeit no talent. Whereas, the UHC/Mammoth hit the ground running as an official expansion team. Go figure why …

Does Phoenix deserve another team? Probably not—just as the NBA should not have given another team to Charlotte. It’s not like MLB will be going back to Oakland, for example. In the end, those decisions come down some combination of TV markets and butts in actual seats. And why did Winnipeg get a second shot? Well, it’s hockey, and it’s Canada. That’s easy enough to figure out: some places were wronged and needed it.

Thus, every “record” for the Utah Mammoth heading into next season was set this just-finished season. Odd.

There’s a long and winding road for many professional sports franchises. Take the homeless Athletics in MLB: the team started in Philadelphia, moved to Kansas City, ended up in Oakland, and soon will be in Las Vegas. Yes, that’s the extreme, but even beloved franchises like the New York Yankees have an origin story; the Yankees as we know them were once the “original” Baltimore Orioles from 1901-1902. Those are facts.

The NFL has its fair share of meandering franchises (the Arizona Cardinals, for one), and it also “began” this new trend of leaving legacies behind for cities to reclaim at a later date. The Indianapolis Colts, for example, took the organizational history with them when they fled Baltimore in the early 1980s, but the Baltimore Ravens left behind the legacy of the Cleveland Browns in the mid-1990s for the Lake Erie fans.

The Ravens officially were an expansion team even though they had an intact organization and personnel roster in their first season. It’s no wonder Baltimore won its first Super Bowl so soon, while the “real” expansion teams from the mid-1990s—the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars—have yet to do so. After all, not all teams can be the Vegas Golden Knights, either, starting from scratch and dominating.

Thus, the Mammoth are already behind in organization development, missing the playoffs in the first season of existence. Maybe they should have picked a real nickname for Year One after all, eh? Seriously.