SF Spiders Revisited
Peter Hartlaub wrote a piece on the SF Spiders recently: This S.F. pro hockey team only lasted one season — but it was glorious
As someone who worked for the Spiders (Laurie and I were the webmasters of sfspiders.com), had season tickets and were in the building for at 30+ games that one glorious season, I have, well, thoughts.
Unveiled on Dec. 15, 1994, with great fanfare by team owner Dave Pasant, the design was — with apologies to the Warriors’ “The City” jersey and the San Jose Churros — arguably the greatest in Bay Area history.
I’m not sure I’d go that far (and to be honest, if you go back to the early days of the Sharks (we were first season ticket holders for them as well, so we spent two years with them in the Cow Palace), it was and continues to be a great and unique franchise logo that didn’t die and fade into obscurity after one year. But I do love the Spiders logo.
folding shortly after a season of lackluster ticket sales and shortsighted front office decisions. But they did everything else right, signing an NHL All-Star for two games, making us remember why we love the Cow Palace and paying for a Stanley Cup-winning coach
I find it interesting that there’s no mention of their years-long attempt to resurrect the Spiders in Victoria, BC, which ultimately failed. They didn’t exactly fold after one year, they went on hiatus to try to move or sell the team, which ultimately didn’t happen - and ultimately, the entire IHL league folded in 2001, a victim of among other things over-expansion and unrealistic expectations caused by attendance boosts caused by the NHL lockout in 1994 that nobody should have thought were sustainable. Overall, the IHL sold franchises to expand into a market at prices that were unrealistic using number projections that smart owners wouldn’t have believed.
As someone who spent more than 50 nights over three seasons (two NHL, one IHL) in the Cow Palace, I will happily suggest that anyone who uses the phrase “love the Cow Palace” hasn’t actually spent any significant time there. We had an “internal only” slogan among those of us working for the Spiders: “It’s a pit, but it’s OUR pit”. Even back in 1994 it was old and tired, it often smelled (thank you, rodeos), the scoreboards were ancient and of limited capability. Concessions were… forgettable. The rent-a-cops were… interesting. I was there when we had the first hat trick (the opposition, of course) and they came and tried to eject someone for throwing a hat onto the ice. A lot of time was spent trying to teach security how to be security at a hockey game.
It was, in some ways, a great place to watch a hockey game, except in some of the seats (especially near the glass) where there was no real incline and so you were looking around those in front of you. But a lot of the arena had really good sight lines and the ice was small (same size as the old Chicago Arena, not NHL sizeds) and it handled sound well when there was a crowd.
Oh, and Jean Perron, the coach? There were reasons he was an ex-NHL coach, and after his stint with the Spiders remained an ex-NHL coach.
Pasant made it clear early that he wasn’t a cheap owner.
That was true… until about a month into the season. At that point, Pasant figured out attendance was poor, and took at look at the checks he was writing, and he started slashing costs, laying off people, and trying to minimize his costs. It kind of became a sad running joke that whoever got assigned to be our liason into the team was due to be next to get laid off, because in some ways, it was true — we ended up having five official contacts that year, with the first four getting pink slips along the way. Office morale was terrible after a couple of months, and we all knew the franchise was walking dead by then; we just all tried to not let it show.
The team had some early luck, luring the San Jose Sharks’ Sandis Ozolinsh, in the middle of a contract holdout, to their preseason practices. The All-Star defenseman was being offered $1.4 million per season, which was nearly the salary of the entire Spiders roster, but agreed to play the first two games for the league minimum of $500.
Sandis, of course, was only interested in playing to stay in shape until his deal with the Sharks was finalized. He did score the first goal in franchise history, of course. The Spiders did, I think, do a smart thing in bringing back in some of the well-remembered early day sharks, which included Dale Craigwell, Ed Courtnay, Robin BAwa and Dave Maley. Bringing back Link Gaetz (3 games, 0 points, 37 penalty minutes) was the disaster that anyone who knew of his tenure with the Sharks predicted.
There were some good players on the team. John Purves had his career year for us; a career minor leaguer who had 7 games for the Capitals, he ended up with 105 points and 56 goals. He never matched those numbers again, but played 7 more seasons in the IHL. His raw talent was definitely NHL caliber, but he never figured out how to harness it consistently at an NHL level. Normand Rochefort had an extensive NHL career, but by the time he joined the Spiders, those days were beyond him. He was a good, capable, solid D-man, though. Same could be said for Mike Lalor (also a Sharks alum for 23 games). Alain Cote another with good NHL experience, but two years later was playing in Japan, then Nuermberg. The common thread: these were all journeyman NHLers on the downward slope of their career looking to extend it for another season or two in San Francisco.
Watching them, they weren’t remotely a GOOD team, but they worked hard and they tried. I enjoyed watching them most nights, and in my view, they rarely phoned it in, and I’ll give them credit for it.
Another highlight — the guy who performed as the mascot in the Spider costume was incredibly good — until he blew out his knee. He really understood when and how to try to bring energy into the building, and some nights, he was the real highlight.
And while most merch from minor league teams is being given away, Spiders jerseys have more than held their value; a used jersey is listed for $375 on eBay.
Part of that, of course, is because so little of it was sold initially. And no, my jersey (and jacket, and pucks, and stuff) are not for sale.
Love clearly remains for the San Francisco Spiders — “fun, sinister and kind of creepy” — and the most successful failure in Bay Area sports history.
No, they were just a failure, not very successful at all. And I’d probably name the Oakland A’s as the most successful failure in the region, to be honest. If only because there were so many chances to solve the problems leading up to their pending move to Vegas, and people on all sides of this found ways time after time to screw up the opportunities.
