Last Updated: Sun Jan 19 10:31:00 1997




(RE-SENDING) 



#All-Star Weekend puts Northern California in hockey spotlight#
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By Daren Smith 
Senior Editor 



SAN JOSE -- With the NHL's All-Star Weekend officially under
way, interest in hockey in San Jose and the rest of northern
California has reached a fever pitch. 



Organizers expect 40,000 people to attend the interactive NHL
FANtasy exhibit at the San Jose Convention Center, which runs
through Sunday.  That's 10,000 more than attended a similar
event at last year's All-Star Game in Boston. 



The San Jose Sharks, whose next winning season will be their
first since entering the league in 1991-92, have played before
106 consecutive sellouts. And, of course, tonight's All-Star
Game has been sold out for months. 



But it hasn't always been this way in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Long before the Sharks, there were the Seals, who spent
nine trying seasons in Oakland before moving to Cleveland for
the 1976-77 season. 



Beset by management problems, the Seals finished higher than
fourth only once and spent six seasons -- including their last
four -- in last place.  Oakland entered the league in 1967-68 as
part of the NHL's first expansion.  The Seals were one of six
new franchises and, along with the Los Angeles Kings, introduced
Californians to the National Hockey League. 



Unfortunately, not all Californians liked what they saw. 



"Back then it was the mid-70s, there was a lot of fighting and
brawling," said Charlie Simmer, who broke into the NHL with the
California Golden Seals in 1974 before becoming a 50-goal scorer
with the Kings in the '80s.  "The games seemed to last forever
and it seemed to take away from the natural sport that (hockey)
is." 



Simmer and other veterans of hockey's first foray into the Bay
Area are in San Jose to participate in Friday night's Heroes of
Hockey Game.  The old-timers' contest will pit a team of ex-NHL
Stars against a group of ex-California Stars, many of whom never
expected the NHL to find a niche in this part of the country. 



"I never would have thought that hockey would take off in this
area the way it has," said former defenseman Carol Vadnais, who
was plucked by the Seals off the Montreal Canadiens' roster in
the expansion draft.  "We were hoping it would because we all
loved the game." 



The Seals went 15-42-17 in their first season, but jumped to
second place in the all-expansion Western Division in 1968-69.
They fell to fourth the following season before they were
purchased by Charles O. Finley, who already owned the Oakland
Athletics and dressed the Seals in similar green and gold
uniforms. 



"I remember when (he) came around," Vadnais said.  "He was way
ahead of his time in terms of color.  He wanted an orange puck
and we had white skates and then we had colored skates for a
while.  He was a very colorful man.  He had a lot of ideas." 



Finley's Seals did not experience the success of his A's.  They
finished last in 1970-71 and next-to-last in 1971-72 before
beginning their four-year run in the basement.  The Seals, hit
hard by defections to the fledgling World Hockey Association,
reached bottom in 1973-74 when they won only 13 of 78 games. 



Financial problems forced the league to take over the Seals in
1974.  Within two years, after plans for a new arena in San
Francisco were scuttled, the team was headed to Ohio. 



"I remember driving over the San Mateo Bridge and I heard the
team was moving and there were four possible sites -- Denver,
Miami, New Orleans and Cleveland," former Seals goaltender Gary
Simmons told the San Francisco Examiner.  "And I said to myself,
`It'll be Cleveland because there's nothing wrong with the other
three places.'  Sure enough, it was Cleveland." 



Yet players like Simmer knew hockey could survive, perhaps even
thrive, in Northern California under the right circumstances. 



"We always thought that if you could get them in the building,
then they're going to enjoy the game and that's definitely
what's happened since then," he said.  "The biggest chore for us
was getting as many people into the game as we could. 



"(The fans) were really into the game," added Simmer, who works
as a broadcaster for the Phoenix Coyotes.  "Maybe a lot of the
time they didn't understand what was going on, but at least they
showed a lot of emotion through the whole game."