SAP Center at San Jose has served as the home for the NHL San Jose Sharks, AFL’s Sabercats among few other sports team since 1993 when it first opened its vibrant doors to the citizens visiting the area.
The one of best bits for anyone who has San Jose Sharks tickets in their hand is probably the home team’s intro when they skate to the ice through a giant shark mouth with plenty of fog and glowing eyes. What a way to start an evening!
The venue is capable of accommodating over 17500 and since the team’s fans are a loyal bunch, getting a ticket might require a bit of extra effort at times.
The franchise is fairly young, established in 1992 and they were the first NHL franchise based in San Francisco Bay Area since the Seals moved to Cleveland in 1976.
The Sharks are yet to go to the Finals series but they have already experienced the stress of playing in Conference Championship series as they had gone to three of them.
The franchise has had a decent run when it comes to regular season performances as they missed the playoffs only 6 times since the team’s inception and two of these happened in first two seasons.
The Sharks are members of Pacific Division in Western Conference and they and they won the Division the most times with 6 titles going to their trophy cabinet. They also won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2009. The team seems to lack a bit in playoffs where it matters the most.
The franchise’s colours are deep pacific teal, burnt orange, black and white and their official mascot is friendly looking shark that goes by the name SJ Sharkie.
The Sharks head coaching duties has been entrusted in Peter DeBoer who became the team’s coach in 2015. He formerly played as a center in AHL after which he started coaching mainly in OHL where he was named the coach of the year twice. He also led his team to OHL Memorial Cup championship.
The goalie’s job belongs to Martin Jones who went undrafted in and spent most of his time in AHL. He then joined the Kings as their backup goalie and was part of the Stanley Cup victorious team. He was traded to the Sharks in 2015 where he hopes to further improve his craft. He is also a world champion as he played for his team of Canada in 2015 World Championships.
Joe Pavelski (center) who was drafted by the Sharks in 2003 became their captain in 2015 after several seasons of continued improvement of his game. He is known for being extremely efficient at shootouts and he is one of the team’s leading points scorers who can get on hot streaks very often.
He is supported by a savvy veteran, Joseph Thornton who was the first overall draft pick in 1997. He played for the Bruins when he was traded to San Jose in during 2005-06 season at what time, he won the Art Ross Trophy for leading the league in scoring points along with Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP.
He spent his time with the franchise having his ups and downs but with so many years of experience and also a gold medal in Winter Olympic in 2010 for his team Canada he is a very important asset to a team willing develop young players.
The Sharks might have missed the playoffs last season but nothing stays in their way of getting back there immediately.