San Jose Sharks Tickets

The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. They play in the National Hockey League. The Sharks, along with the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA, are often credited with popularizing teal as a color for American sports teams. They are also referred to as Los Tiburones. Although northern California was not considered a particularly fertile hockey market, the NHL's 1967-68 expansion included a Bay Area team, primarily because the terms of a new television agreement with CBS called for two of the new teams to be located in California. Thus, the Oakland Seals were one of the six expansion teams added, but were a failure both on the ice and at the gate. After nine money-losing seasons and continued low attendance, in 1976 the Seals were sold to Cleveland businessmen George and Gordon Gund and moved to Cleveland, where they became the Barons. After two more years of losses, the Gunds were permitted to merge the Barons with the financially struggling Minnesota North Stars. The Gunds emerged as the owners of the North Stars as part of the deal. On May 5, 1990, the Gunds officially sold their share of the North Stars and were awarded a new team in the Bay Area, based in San Jose. Over 5000 entries were submitted by mail for the new team. While the first-place finisher was "Blades," the Gunds were concerned about the name's negative connotations (weapons, etc) and went with the runner-up, "Sharks." The name was said to have been inspired by the large number of sharks living in the Pacific Ocean. Seven different varieties live there, and one portion near the Bay Area is known as the "red triangle" because of its shark population. The team's first marketing head, Matt Levine, said of the new name, "Sharks are relentless, determined, swift, agile, bright and fearless. We plan to build an organization that has all those qualities." 2003-04 saw another turnaround for the team, resulting in the team's best season ever. An injection of youth, with players like Christian Ehrhoff and Niko Dimitrakos, and the influx of energy with Alexander Korolyuk jump started San Jose. They posted the third-best record in the league with a team-record 104 points (31 more than the previous season, and the first time the team had earned 100 points, all thanks to Primeau in OT on March 28 against the Stars), won the Pacific Division championship, and were seeded second in the Western Conference. They charged through the playoffs; taking down the Blues 4 games to 1 in the conference quarterfinals and stopping the Colorado Avalanche 4-2 in the conference semis—before falling to the Calgary Flames 4-2 in the conference finals. At the 2006 NHL Awards Show at The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, Joe Thornton was awarded the Hart Trophy as the league's Most Valuable Player, as well as the Art Ross Trophy for leading the league in points, with a total of 125 points, the most ever by a player playing for two teams in the same season. Thornton is also the third player in three years to win both the Hart Trophy and the Art Ross in the same year, following Peter Forsberg in 2003 and Martin St. Louis in 2004. Thornton is the first Shark ever to be the league MVP. Jonathan Cheechoo also received the Rocket Richard Trophy for netting the most goals during the regular season, with a total of 56.