This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
The Sharks’ home ice has been in the heart of the South Bay for more than two decades. They are San Jose’s team.
But for their first two years, while the SAP Center was under construction, the current NHL Western Conference Champion hockey team needed a halfway house. And when the Bay Area first fell in love with the team, that way station was the Cow Palace in Daly City near the San Francisco border.
编年史数以百计的游戏的照片team’s 1991 to 1993 residency at the Cow Palace, where the struggling expansion team with fading stars and young hopefuls — remember Pat Falloon? — amassed a 22-56-4 home record. But arguably the best photos were taken on April 4, 1993, during one of the team’s final Cow Palace games. Chronicle photographer Brant Ward pointed his camera in the stands, capturing the team’s sparse yet dedicated early fan base.
Immediately noticeable are the 1990s fashions, including more mullets than you’ll see at a Sharks game in 2016. (When the first Our San Francisco-style Chronicle archive searches began in the mid-2000s, 1993 didn’t qualify as nostalgia. Now the 1990s are almost as visually distinct as the 1970s.)
The Cow Palace, built as a livestock pavilion in the 1940s, has hosted everything from the Beatles andPrinceconcerts to two Republican National Conventions to anEvel Knieveljump and two Golden State Warriors 1975 championship games. The pro hockey San Francisco Seals played at the Cow Palace in the 1960s, winning championships in 1963 and 1964.
But when the eulogy of the building is written — hopefully sometime in the distant future — the rowdy Sharks years belong near the top.
Chronicle reporter Steve Kettman’s April 10, 1993, story documented a more-than-half-empty Cow Palace, where the concession sold T-shirts “with crying cows bidding a tearful farewell to the Sharks.” Fans defended the Cow Palace, calling its smaller-than-normal NHL rink an asset that inspired physical play.
“It’s not up to the standards of major-league hockey, but it’s intimate,” retired Postal Service worker Bruno Crociani told Kettman. “The excitement’s still there. That’s what you come for. … You feel close to the game.”
Ward’s photos, taken throughout the arena, tell the rest of the story. On display is the foundation of a fan base that would grow and become one of the more raucous and loyal in the league. There are fans with glorious hockey mullets to match their heroes on the ice. Sharks backers seem especially fond of props, with grown men wearing shark head wear, playing with shark puppets and (in one case) lining up toy sharks on the ledge next to the plexiglass surrounding the rink. Two college-age fans show up in foam “Puckhead” hats.
But the future of the team can be seen in the children, dressed head to toe in Sharks gear, cheering the over-matched team to a 4-3 loss against the Calgary Flames, reaching out from the stands to touch the players as they head off the ice. One kid who looks to be about 3 years old wields a toddler-size hockey stick, batting around a balled-up piece of paper in his nearly empty row — no doubt dreaming of the Bay Area’s first Stanley Cup.
That championship right now is closer than it has ever been, led by Sharks players with unusually long tenure. Current Sharks star Patrick Marleau was drafted in 1997, just four years after these photos were taken.
But few waited longer for glory than the people in these photos, some of whom are probably gone, many of whom have likely grown into Sharks-loving adults. Consider it the ultimate sign of fandom to see yourself in Brant Ward’s images. Photo proof you were there from the beginning.
Salute to all the fans of the Cow Palace Sharks. Whatever good happens with this team, you deserve it the most.
Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email:phartlaub@sfchronicle.comTwitter:PeterHartlaub
Slideshow:If you see a younger version of yourself in the slideshow for this story, contact Peter Hartlaub at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com.
