Sharks season even worse than the A’s

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The San Jose Sharks, a hockey team, reportedly, are doing what seemed impossible — having a worse season than the Oakland Athletics, a baseball team, reportedly.

Different sports, but similar ineptitude. Must be something in the Bay Area water. Or considering the number of vineyards, the wine.

The A’s had the worst record in the game in 2023. The Sharks very well may end up with the worst record in NHL history. There still is a question because the hockey season still has weeks and weeks to go.

Unfortunately, perhaps.

As of November 7, Tuesday, the Sharks had played 11 games and haven only won a single one. They also have a tie. As if that matters. 

The only thing that does matter is getting more goals (or runs) than the opponent. So far that’s been a hopeless task for the Sharks, as most of the  spring and summer it was for the A’s

Twice the Sharks have given up 10 goals in a game. Yikes.   

The two franchises ended up in similarly dire straits for the most obvious of reasons, a notable lack of playing talent, their rosters depleted and their fans deprived  

The Sharks found it necessary to rebuild, trading among others Eri  Karlsson (Norris Trophy winner as the league’s best defenseman) for younger players.   

The A’s trick was to go after cheaper players, telling us they couldn’t compete financially—and then (snigger, snigger) announcing they were going to shift the team to Las Vegas. 

The Sharks aren’t going anywhere, literally as well as figuratively. They’ll be a San Jose for a long while, whether their once-loyal fans will be is the issue.

In the last few years, attendance at SAP Center has declined.  

The Sharks were wildly popular, as San Jose’s own, they were the local product of a city seeking its own sporting identity. However, they were often put in the shade by the burg up the coast at 49ers games in neighboring Santa Clara TV shows and views of the Golden Gate Bridge, in San Francisco.  

San Jose is hockey territory and yet at the same time, it isn’t hockey territory like Toronto or Boston. Does a revised roster fill up the seats again?  

The A’s actually had a winning record one day into the season, but from 1-0, reality took over. A ball club peopled with prospects and suspects is doomed to tumble. 

Maybe the best part of the A’s season was the reverse boycotts staged by fans trying to persuade owner John Fisher to sell the team. Stubbornly he wouldn’t, and so he’s prepared to move.

For the Sharks and the A’s, it’s been the worst of times.

Steph’s 49 tops a great few days in Bay Area sports

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This is as good as it gets. There are fans in the stands. There is joy in the air. There is Steph Curry still on a tear.

We can say goodbye to retiring Alex Smith — remember, this is where he started, with the 49ers — and say thank you to Patrick Marleau, who started and will finish here, meaning in both cases the Bay Area.

Let’s acknowledge this era as one of special regional success.

Let’s acknowledge Marleau for setting the NHL record for games played, which he did as a member the Sharks at Vegas on Monday night.

And let’s again acknowledge Curry, remarkable, unstoppable, for what he continues to do — which Monday night was score 49 points, including 10 3-pointers, leading the Warriors to a 107-96 win over the 76ers in Philadelphia.

It was Steph’s 11th straight game scoring at least 30.

That, arguably, was the highlight of an unforgettable few days in Northern Cal sports.

Also Monday night, also at Philly, Brandon Belt, who could be labeled ageless (he was around for the World Series wins years ago), homered for the game’s only runs and pitcher Kevin Gausman (who could be considered dominant) led the Giants over the Phillies, 2-0.

The Athletics are not to be ignored, although their scheduled game at Oakland was postponed when the opponent, the Minnesota Twins, failed to pass a Covid test. The A’s, who started the season by losing a team record 6 straight, have now won eight in a row.

The Athletics finally are playing as expected. The Giants are playing better than forecast. The Warriors are playing the way a team with a great player sometimes does.

The Sharks? Let’s call them the exception that proves the rule, whatever the rule is. Besides, who wants to knock the team just as Marleau sets the mark for most NHL games played?

We haven’t beaten Covid-19. Maybe we never will. But we’re making progress, gaining momentum, getting back to the way we were, and the way our sports were — or because of Steph, advancing in leaps and bounds.

We’re smiling more, laughing a lot, able to think about colors of team uniforms rather than those of the Covid tiers; people at games other than catchers still need to wear masks, but we’ll adjust as needed.

So it’s not the best of times, not with restrictions on attendance still in effect. It’s been worse. Six months ago, it was worse.

The only access to our games was through TV or over the internet. Now, the U.S. Golf Association has announced that a limited amount of spectators will be allowed to attend the U.S. Women’s Open in June at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

Now you can go to an A’s game and sit two rows in front of a guy who was the most accomplished bench jockey I’ve heard in years — OK, so he had couple of beers; still he knew all the classics, and his voice carried throughout the Coliseum. No obscenities either.

ESPN wants us to believe Dodgers-Padres suddenly is the biggest rivalry on the West Coast, but it’s 100 years behind Dodgers-Giants. Fans up here are testier and more accomplished. No beach balls either, only the basketballs Curry is utilizing in the most spectacular way.

Asked for yet another post-game comment about Curry, his star — the NBA’s star, if you will — Warriors coach Steve Kerr sighed, “I don’t know what else to say about what I think of Steph and his performance. I was in utter amazement. He is simply amazing.”

As have been the past few days in Bay Area sports.

S.F. Examiner: Sharks' dream run ends by watching Penguins celebrate

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By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

There’s only one winner. As we know so well. And so painfully, if the players we choose, the team we choose, is not that winner. Then too often, that ultimate loss, in the Wimbledon final, in the Super Bowl or in this instance for the San Jose Sharks in the Stanley Cup, overwhelms all the bliss and the results that went before.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Sharks need answers beneath beards and clichés

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By Art Spander

SAN JOSE — What are the Sharks going to say? That they’re not as good as the Pittsburgh Penguins — which, obviously, they’re not. Athletes never say that, even though deep down, beneath the beards and the clichés, they may think that way.

Instead, they tell us what we’ve heard dozens of times from teams in a hole — mainly that they just need a break or, more precisely, a goal.

Just need to play from in front, something that in the first Stanley Cup final of their quarter-century history, the San Jose Sharks have been unable to do.

They did win the third game in overtime on Saturday. But those few seconds that led to eternity marked the only time in four games, including Monday night’s 3-1 loss, that the Sharks held a lead.

The Penguins were favored in this final, and it’s easy to understand why. They skate better, score faster and keep control. Four games, the last two here at SAP, where the enthusiasm of the sellout crowds diminished as the periods mounted — reality can crush even the most optimistic of fans — and there’s no mistaking a trend. Or a mismatch.

So strange the comparisons between the Bay Area’s two teams in the finals, the Warriors, rolling along in the NBA over a Cleveland Cavaliers squad that is saying it just needs to perform as normal, and the Sharks, being rolled over — all right, skated over — and uttering the same responses.

This doesn’t mean either the Sharks or Cavs are to be keel-hauled by that awful description, loser, because how can you be a loser if the team has won enough to reach the final step? It’s just that the media and the fans put so much stock in championships that sometimes the character and success that had everyone gleeful is abruptly discounted.

Sure, the Sharks could win the next game, Thursday in Pittsburgh, but also it could snow Thursday in San Jose. Neither will happen. Yes, as Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said matter-of-factly, the games have been close — Game 4 on Monday was the only one decided by more than one goal — but that emphasizes even more the difference between the teams.

The Penguins find ways to win the close games. That’s the ultimate mark of a champion.

“We’ve got to find a way to get on the board early,” DeBoer said. Exactly. But why would they be able to do it now when they couldn’t four consecutive games?

The only thing that’s certain is if they don’t have the lead when the next game is over, the series is over, and the Sharks will be standing there at the handshake contemplating next year.

Maybe they already are. Joe Pavelski, who played so many years before reaching the Cup final, implied that the Sharks on occasion have been virtual spectators, maybe overwhelmed by playing on the NHL’s biggest stage.

“Sometimes the players didn’t make the play,” he said. “You want to keep it simple.” You’ve heard it before in other sports: the Super Bowl is just a football game, the U.S. Open just a golf tournament. But when you’ve never been there after waiting your whole career, years and years, to get there, the approach is different — not necessarily frenzied, but less focused. Or too focused, not relaxed.

After the game, too many of the Sharks used the word “if” in their conversations with the media. If they had capitalized on the passing early on. If they had played the first and second periods as intensely and aggressively as they did the third, when they got their lone goal, by Melker Karlsson, well ... you know the rest of the comment.

But they didn’t, because the Penguins, who locked it up with that third goal after Karlsson’s score, wouldn’t let them.

“We have to find ways to get the first goal,” said the Sharks' Logan Couture. “We haven’t played our best hockey. I think everyone has another level they can rely on.”

Said DeBoer: “We’ve been chasing the lead the whole series.”

The lead and the Penguins.

S.F. Examiner: Sharks earn first Stanley Cup finals berth in team history

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By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

And so a quarter-century of silence is over. That’s a figure of speech, of course, because when it comes to the San Jose Sharks, home fans never have been silent, although in the team’s history, starting at the Cow Palace, then continuing on to the glass-bricked building now known as SAP Center, there may never have been a crowd as raucous as Wednesday night.

“Make Noise,” advised the big message board hanging from the rafters, and never has such advice gone to waste. If the 17,562 fans made any more noise, well, the jets that swoop in for landings at nearby San Jose International would have been drowned out.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

RealClearSports: A Capital Offense by Some Bruins Fans

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

And so we return to sport's disgraceful past, when a man's performance was less important than the color of his skin. But hatred and ignorance are now introduced through the modern marvel of social media. Or, in this situation, anti-social media.

A hockey player from the Washington Capitals, Joel Ward, scored an overtime goal Wednesday night that eliminated the defending champion Boston Bruins from the Stanley Cup playoffs practically before they got a chance to get in, the first round.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

RealClearSports: This Time, Sharks Come Through

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The sharpest dart, the one that figuratively drew blood and might have drawn someone into an argument, came from the captain, Joe Thornton, weary from having the truth told about his team, the San Jose Sharks.

The Sharks have gained a reputation, and it's hardly the sort any franchise or individual wishes. They've been described as failures, a hockey team that performs well through the regular season and early rounds of the playoffs, then falls apart.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

RealClearSports: Exorbitant Salaries? Just Supply and Demand

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

In Britain, where austerity is in vogue and government budget cuts affect the health system, schools and other vital services, Liverpool of the Premier League signed free-agent soccer star Joe Cole for four years at $7.4 million a year. Hardly austere.

On this side of the Atlantic, the New Jersey Devils, based in Newark, a city with an unemployment rate of more than 13 percent, happily re-signed Ilya Kovalchuk to a 17-year, $102 million contract. Even though rejected by the National Hockey League, it disturbed many citizens.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Spring unkind to Bay Area teams

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The San Jose Sharks — they’re not to be confused with the San Jose A’s. The A’s still are playing. So are the San Francisco Giants, unfortunately.

If it weren’t for the Houston Astros, the Giants would have a losing record. If it weren’t for the Giants, the A’s would have a losing record. If it weren’t for the Sharks, we’d have to rely on the Warriors’ lottery selection for the story that never ends.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Sharks: Smoke, Fire and More Disappointment

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

Steve Jobs, the poo-bah from Apple, has invented a new sport. He and his wealthy pals from down here in Silicon Valley buy those Segway machines, the ones that look part scooter, part cycle and cost a cool $5,000. Then they use them to play polo.

Cheaper than a string of ponies, is their contention.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Sharks trying to avoid Bay Area curse

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By Art Spander
Special to the Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — Now it is the Sharks’ turn to overcome the Curse of the Bay-bino. No, our teams didn’t sell Babe Ruth — just traded Willie Mays and Mark McGwire — but they’ve been undone by a jinx, the Left Coast version.

Fame of late has been achieved less through suspension bridges than suspended belief. They did what? We’re the kings of the “Here We Go Again” syndrome.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Bad news Bay Area at it again

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — It was another of those should have, could have days for the Bay Area, the ones overloaded with bad memories and worse possibilities.

There was Manny Ramirez standing at the plate for the Dodgers, two outs in the eighth and you knew what was going to happen.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: America's Infatuation with Hockey Is Over

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

We've had this infatuation before, after the World Cup was held in the United States in 1994, maybe after the women's World Cup win, in the same stadium where the '99 final was played, the Rose Bowl. America was soccer mad, like Europe and South America, was the wild proclamation.

Not at all. America was merely being America, a nation excited for a time about a special event, a competition that for that day was must-see, like a Super Bowl or a Kentucky Derby. Make it seem important enough and you can sell out anything from log rolling to curling.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: New year doesn't bring much hope for Bay Area sports

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — This is a happy new year? The 49ers reveling because they didn’t lose more games than they won. The Raiders groping because they did lose more games than they won. The Warriors making us wish it were baseball season. The Giants and A’s making us wonder why we should wish it were baseball season.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company