SharePacific Hockey Association Celebrates 30 Years of Bay Area Adult Hockey
2012-09-22
Over the next few months, I will be writing about the early years of adult hockey in the Bay Area starting in 1982. We will cover some of the teams, players and rinks that helped shape this sport. Hope you will enjoy this.Starting with the first week of December 1982, 120 beginner players took the ice at the Berkeley and Belmont Icelands and Southland Mall Arena in Hayward to learn to play ice hockey in the National Novice Hockey League. Those players formed the original 10 teams (Chiefs, Griffins, Blue Jays, Comets, Rebels, Leafs, Invaders, Gems and Spectres) and were followed onto the ice only 3 months later by 6 more teams.
Those original players and their offspring, helped turn around the dying youth programs; saved, renovated and led to the construction of new rinks and helped a group attempting to gain an expansion franchise in the NHL to attain a team for San Jose.
Over the next few months, we will be featuring brief historical information on some of these pioneers. Remarkably, 3 of those 16 teams have survived the full 30 years. The Chiefs and Warriors (2nd group of 6) have never missed a season in the NNHL, NNHA, HNA and finally the PHA. The Blue Jays still play in the east bay after years in all four leagues. There are still a few players that have played the entire 30 years in those leagues. We will be featuring a few over the next couple of weeks.
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