California/Oakland Seals Jersey Crests Photos

[Timaa]

What's even going on in that logo? I can see the C or O, and the "seal" with the stick, but what else is going on in the background? I don't even know, is this a well respected logo, or is it a joke in this community?

[kw11333]

San Jose, has been nothing but a great hockey market, why did it fail so horribly the first time in and around the bay area?

[John in KY]

San Jose, has been nothing but a great hockey market, why did it fail so horribly the first time in and around the bay area?

Different times; I don't think a lot of the USA was a really good hockey market in the mid-to-late 60s.

Also poor ownership - if I'm remembering correctly the original Seals ownership failed and turned the team back to the league. The NHL sold the team to Charlie Finley - while the As were resonably successful (although eventual free agency put them into the "small market" category from 1976 on) the Seals just couldn't generate revenue. Also you should know that Finley had an ABA franchise that moved around and eventually also failed while located in Memphis, TN. That ABa team was reborn with better ownership but still folded before the final ABA season. Finley sold the team to the Gunds; they eventually moved them to Cleveland where they failed after 2 seasons and were merged in with the Minnesota North Stars (who were also failing financially even though Minneapolis should have been a great hockey market).

Part of the deal that sold the North Stars to the owner who moved them to Dallas was that the Gunds could pull out and get an expansion team, which became the successful San Jose Sharks.

[TruColor]

So it's basically one of those awkward shades of gold that appears to be a green-ish yellow in certain shades of light.

It does also look very much like the Pens' vegas gold.

Just from a lay person's eye it appears to be a gold, I do not really see a green-ish yellow in any of the game worn sweaters.

On my calibrated monitor (I use X-Rite's hueyPRO calibration device), it is very much a Light Green.

[The Giant Pacific Octopus]

Years ago I had a nice conversation with Len Shapiro (who worked with the Seals as a PR guy back in the day). He really believed the team would've been better off in San Francisco rather than Oakland.

The Seals were very popular when they played in SF back in their WHL days as the San Francisco Seals. When Van Gerbig moved the Seals over to Oakland in 1966 and then brought them into the NHL via expansion in 1967, the team's popularity dried up (Remember it was San Francisco that was awarded the NHL expansion team in 1965. Van Gerbig and The Ice Follies group [who co-owned the team] chose to go to Oakland instead because of the brand new Oakland Alameda County Colosseum, which they thought was more viable then the aging Cow Palace.).

They had attendance problems from their very inception. That's the reason the name was changed from "California" to "Oakland" just a month into the season so they could make the team more attractive to the Oakland fan base and localize the team as their own.

Oakland looked at the Seals as San Francisco's team and never really took to them, while SF'ers rejected the team when they shifted to Oakland since it wasn't really their team anymore. The two Bay Area cities have a surprisingly strong rivalry.

When Mel Swig bought the team off of the NHL in 1974 (this was after the league had to take control of the team when O'Finly bolted) he tried to get an arena built in SF with every intention of moving the team back there. He was a hotel magnate who was trying to develop real estate (mainly hotel chains) in SF. Civil leaders killed the arena plan. He knew this would kill the Seals for good since they would have no future in Oakland and sold his majority control to the Gunds who took the team to their hometown of Cleveland.

Had the team been able to get an arena built in SF I really believe the Seals would still be around today.

BTW Len Shapiro wrote the forward in Brad Kurtzberg's book on the Seals

[poser]

I think the tech boom helped a lot too. The first few years of Sharks games were full of east coast transplants who were going to games to see their teams play against the Sharks.

[The_Admiral]

That's some interesting information, The Giant Pacific Octopus.

I always thought that one of the biggest problems with the Seals was that CBS sprung the whole San Francisco thing on the NHL kind of late in the game, since they wanted to make sure the Kings had a west coast counterpart that wasn't Vancouver, as originally planned. With the Seals being imported pretty much wholesale from an unaffiliated minor league, were they so organizationally behind the 8-ball to begin with that they were ultimately doomed? As I recall, the Flyers were largely carved out of Montreal's minor-league system, and they predictably hit the ground running and won championships in short order. Obviously, the Seals never had that sort of head start.

[Bleujayone]

The Oakland Seals...hockey's original slug inspired logo.

[TruColor]

The Oakland Seals...hockey's original slug inspired logo.

That's a great observation. It really is/was.