Brett Holmes-Imagn Images
The Arizona Coyotes ceased to exist after their tumultuous existence came to an end in 2023, and the Kachina logo that the team adopted also went the way of the dodo. However, the AHL team that serves as the affiliate for the franchise that now calls Utah home is paying tribute with an amazing rebrand it’s embraced ahead of the upcoming season.
The Coyotes spent close to three decades attempting to prove Hockey Belongs in the Desert after the initial iteration of the Jets left Winnipeg for Phoenix in 1996. However, that experiment proved to be a failure, as the franchise was never able to find any stability (or success) in its new home before the ill-fated tenure came to an end with the purchase that brought an NHL team to Salt Lake City in 2024.
The team that will play its first season as the Utah Mammoth this year essentially wiped the slate clean with a rebrand that signified a fresh start. However, their AHL team has opted to firm up that connection with the one it decided to undergo as it gears up for a new campaign.
The Tucson Roadrunners are paying tribute to the Coyotes’ Kachina with a new primary logo
The Coyotes may not have had much success on the ice, but they did get a major win on the graphic design front with the logo that featured their namesake animal gripping a hockey stick and a color scheme designed to invoke the nature of the desert they called home.
That logo was dubbed the “Kachina” and was inspired by the dolls that the Hopi people have been making since the 1700s; the word itself refers to spirits that serve as the personification of objects and concepts that play a central role in their culture.
The Coyotes foolishly abandoned that logo for a comparatively generic one featuring one of them howling before resurrecting it as their primary one toward the start of the current decade.
Now, the Tucson Roadrunners, the AHL team that previously opted for a fairly cartoonish bird as its primary logo, has made the objectively fantastic decision to draw some inspiration from the Kachina for a surprisingly quiet rebrand that’s been rolled out ahead of the upcoming season.
The logo in question debuted in 2019, but it appears the Roadrunners have wisely decided to make it their main one going forward. It took longer than it probably should have to pull the trigger, but it’s definitely the right call.