San Jose Sharks the Latest Team Swimming in Wave of Bay Area Sporting Success

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Amid the sound of sizzling steaks on their famous, open-air charcoal grill, the servers in formal tuxedos at Original Joe's swear they've never heard it louder in the 60-year-old San Jose institution than on Saturday night.

The San Jose Sharks had just won the first Stanley Cup Finals home game in their 24-season history, in overtime, and even the older men in tuxes, some of whose service at Original Joe's predates the team's existence, let out hearty cheers, according to the restaurant's manager, Gary Pomeroy.

"It was pretty crazy in here," Pomeroy said the morning after, as a quieter crowd dug into heaping plates of steak and eggs and other dishes from an expansive, old-school menu. "When that goal happened in overtime, it was like one long party in here the rest of the night."

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

It's good to be a sports fan in the Bay Area of Northern California these days. The Sharks—the Sharks—are playing for the Cup. Up the road on Interstate 880, the Golden State Warriors are two wins away from their second straight NBA title. It's an even-numbered year, so the San Francisco Giants are back to winning ways in Major League Baseball, leading the National League West.

The Oakland Raiders are...OK, let's not get carried away here. 

But the joy of being a sports fan here was evident all over the faces of longtime San Jose residents Kevin Lacy and A.J. Strong, as they sipped drinks on a recent morning at one of the city's approximately 4,000 Starbucks. Lacy, 32, and Strong, 44, are both decked out in old-school Sharks gear which, as they are quick to remind, feature the original logo—not the more streamlined, pointier-nosed shark of today.

Lacy and Strong say they have been Sharks die-hards pretty much from Day 1, although more so when the team moved into the brand-new San Jose Arena in 1993 after playing their first two years in the Cow Palace in San Francisco. After so many years of well-documented playoff heartbreak, it was still difficult for both men to comprehend that their team was actually, finally, playing for the Stanley Cup.

"We're used to going to the playoffs every year," said Strong, a web developer and part-time disc jockey, "but we're not used to actually, you know, winning too many playoff series."

If the Sharks were to win the Cup, Strong said, "They'll have to shut down the streets around here. It'll be like Mardi Gras."

When Joonas Donskoi scored the overtime-winner in Game 3 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Lacy said it took a few moments for him to believe it was real. 

"Playoff overtime is a glorious thing when it's not your team that is involved," said Lacy, a former banker who now works in the wrestling business. "I was so tense that even when Donskoi scored, I needed a moment for the disbelief to wear off before I could actually celebrate."

---

Jack Ferreira is not happy the Sharks are in the Stanley Cup Final. 

As an executive with the Los Angeles Kings, whose team was eliminated in the first round this year by the Sharks, Ferreira said he hasn't had the stomach to watch much of the playoffs with so much teal on his screen.

But press Ferreira a bit further and he'll admit that, yes, he's a little happy for them. Ferreira was the first general manager in Sharks history, an expansion franchise that started in 1991 through an unusual dispersion draft of the Minnesota North Stars. The team's original owners, George and Gordon Gund, had owned the North Stars and wanted to possibly relocate them to San Jose.

The NHL, though, persuaded the Gunds to sell the North Stars to a Minnesota man named Norm Green in order to keep them there (but the North Stars soon moved to Dallas, anyway). In exchange for selling to Green, the NHL promised the Gunds they could have some of the North Stars' players to better build an expansion team in the Bay Area, including Brian Hayward, who would be the Sharks starting goaltender.

Graig Abel/Getty Images

Ferreira, who was GM of the North Stars, took the Gunds' offer to pack up and start fresh with the Sharks, which still didn't have a name when he first took the job. Along with Sharks, names such as Blades, Condors, Fog, Golden Gaters and Sea Lions were also under consideration.

"It was exciting to be part of something brand new," Ferreira said. "The only thing we had at the start were a bunch of boxes brought over from Minnesota. We had a small office in San Jose, but really, all the players and staff lived around San Francisco because we played and practiced at the Cow Palace."

One of Ferreira's most lasting memories of that first season was the team's first practice at the Cow Palace. 

"The building was totally full, 11,000 people there, to watch a practice," Ferreira said. "We knew right then that we picked the right area to put a team. The Bay Area had hockey before (the California Golden Seals, owned by Charles O. Finley, the notorious owner of the Oakland A's as well, spent nine unsuccessful years in the NHL from 1967-76), but the area was really being transformed by the early '90s, with so many successful companies coming in."

The Sharks, as most expansion teams are, were dreadful that first season. They went 17-58-5 under coach George Kingston, scoring 219 goals and allowing 359. The team's most popular player was Link Gaetz, a heavyweight enforcer who looked like a California surfer. Gaetz, nicknamed "The Missing Link," had 326 penalty minutes in 48 games before he suffered injuries in a serious car accident shortly after the season and never played in the NHL again.

Also on that first Sharks team was 1980 USA hockey hero Mark Pavelich, but after playing only two games, he decided to retire back to his native Minnesota.

"The first time I saw Pavelich, he walked into our office with two golden labrador retrievers. I still remember him saying, 'Let's go girls,'" Ferreira said.

The other thing Ferreira remembers about that first season: the smell of the Cow Palace. 

ERIC RISBERG/Associated Press

"You learned not to have just eaten too big a meal before walking in there," he said. "Sometimes the smells were so overpowering you thought you might get sick."

The Sharks dismissed Ferreira after one season, but they were even worse the second year, going 11-71-2. 

In their two years there, the Sharks' play was equivalent to the smell of the Cow Palace.

But since moving into the San Jose Arena in 1993 (now named the SAP Center), the Sharks have been one of the league's most successful franchises, on and off the ice. Sales of their jerseys have consistently been among the best-sellers in the league, with The Hockey News ranking the original 1991-92 jersey as the best in NHL history.

In their 24 seasons, the Sharks have missed the playoffs only six times. Sharks fans are often ranked by pundits and opponents as among the loudest in the league.

"The building in San Jose was always one where you knew the crowd would be a real factor," said St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, whose team was eliminated in Game 6 of the Western Conference Final last month at the building dubbed the "Shark Tank." "You had to take that factor into account as part of your game plan. It's a credit to the fans of San Jose."

Missing from all those playoff appearances, though, was a trip to the Stanley Cup Final. Several times, it was supposed to be The Year for the Sharks, but the furthest they ever got were three trips to the Western Conference Final, none of which went past six games.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

The fact that it happened this year, in their silver anniversary, has fans such as Lacy and Strong fervently hoping it ends with the silver Stanley Cup parading down Santa Clara Street. But hey, if not, the Warriors are only two wins away from another NBA championship and the Giants are leading the NL West and have the third-best record in baseball, looking like a contender for their fourth World Series title in the last seven years.

"Those teams have gotten their rings, though, and there have been other champions around here too, like the 49ers and the Raiders and the A's," Strong said. "And those teams all did it around Oakland and San Francisco. The Sharks are our team. They're San Jose's team, and so it would be so awesome to see what this town would be like if the Sharks could bring the Cup through the streets here. I honestly don't think Sharks fans would sleep for a couple of days at least. The partying would be nonstop."

They'll still be serving those charcoal-broiled steaks and chops at Original Joe's regardless. But what would it be like for business if Sharks players, who regularly stop in for pre- and post-game meals, were to bring the Stanley Cup along? 

"There'd be lines around the block to get in," Pomeroy said with a gleam in his eye.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.