San Jose Sharks

SAP Center holds about 17,562 for hockey and sits in downtown San Jose. The Sharks launched in 1991 with a color scheme - teal, black, and gray - that was genuinely different from anything in professional hockey at the time and influenced a decade of expansion team branding decisions across professional sports. The Shark Tank nickname for the arena became so widely used that it preceded Amazon's television show by two decades in the hockey context.

The Sharks were a Western Conference powerhouse through the 2000s and 2010s, making deep playoff runs and a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2016 before a rebuild phase followed. San Pedro Square Market on San Pedro Street a few blocks north of the arena is a covered food hall with vendor stalls and bar options worth knowing about before a game. Downtown San Jose has enough restaurants and bars in the immediate vicinity of SAP Center to handle pregame without requiring a plan. The VTA light rail stops at Convention Center and Arena stations nearby.

The Sharks fan base in the South Bay is loyal and the building has been loud in playoff years. The teal army in the lower bowl on a rivalry game night with the LA Kings or Anaheim Ducks is worth seeing. The team has been rebuilding around a young core and the trajectory points toward competitiveness again in the near future.

Find Sharks tickets through Evil Tickets and see what's on the SAP Center schedule this season.