- San Francisco Seals (hockey)
:"For the professional baseball team see:
San Francisco Seals (baseball) ."The San Francisco Seals were a
minor league hockey team which played in theWestern Hockey League beginning with the 1961-62 season through the 1966-67 season.History
At the time, the Western Hockey League was nothing like the minor leagues you see today. Many of the teams were independently owned and operated. It might be best to think of the Western Hockey League of the early '60s as the equivalent of
Pac-10 football today. The talent wasn't quite up toNational Hockey League or evenAmerican Hockey League standards. But the rivalries were intense and the entertainment value superb.The Seals, playing out of the
Cow Palace , were a big part of this. After their inaugural season, the Seals lured coach and general managerNorman "Bud" Poile south from the 1961-62 playoff championEdmonton Flyers . Poile had won three championships in eight seasons at Edmonton. With the Seals, he would add two more.Poile's teams generally led the league in penalty minutes. The Seals fit the mold. Led by hard-nosed players such as
Orland Kurtenbach ,Larry McNabb ,Nick Mickoski andCharlie Burns , the 1962-63 Seals developed a fierce rivalry with thePortland Buckaroos , perennial regular season champions of the WHL. For the next two seasons, Portland-San Francisco games had the atmosphere of a heavyweight title fight. Games between the two routinely attracted crowds of 8,000 or more.zThe LA Blades were another rival. Cow Palace crowds loved to hate defenceman "Big Burly Bill Burega".
The Seals won the
Lester Patrick Cup playoffs in 1962-63, defeating theSeattle Totems in the finals after eliminating Portland in seven rugged games. In 1963-64, the Seals finished a distant fourth during the regular season. But with superb play from forwardAl Nicholson and roly-poly goalieBob Perreault , San Francisco beat Portland in the first round of the playoffs and won the league title by defeating theLos Angeles Blades .Just how big an impact did this minor-league outfit make on cosmopolitan
San Francisco ? Their radio announcer was none other thanBill King , longtime voice of theOakland Raiders andOakland A's . And for years, the roof of Tommy's Joynt, that cozy beer hall at the corner of Van Ness and Geary, displayed a hockey stick signed by members of theDenver Invaders , another WHL rival of the Seals.The team's best known radio announcer was Roy Storey who was known for his ferocious call "shot on goal!!
Bill King did some radio, but Storey was the main voice. [http://www.sfradiomuseum.com/sports/index.shtml#seals_whl]
For the 1966-67 season, the team played at the
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and were renamed the "California Seals". Although considered an expansion team, it was essentially this franchise that entered theNational Hockey League for 1967-68.NHL incorporation
When the team joined the NHL in
1967 , it was initially called the "California Seals " to appeal to fans in both San Francisco andOakland . However after only a few months the team had failed to attract many fans from San Francisco and the name was changed to the Oakland Seals. The name was later changed again to the California Golden Seals.ee also
*
California Seals
*San Jose Sharks
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