Making of: The Cow Palace

Making of: The Cow Palace

[Music] while the tank has become synonymous with sharks hockey it hasn’t been the team’s only home in fact it wasn’t even the first home that distinct honor goes to a building that still stands proudly today 50 mi north of san jose it’s the cow palace neatly tucked in these rolling hills of daily city this historic venue opened in 1941 and during its 50th year of existence in 1991 the sharks joined the national hockey league and landed here for two temporary seasons it was at the cow palace where the first sharks fans met each other where the first sharks players met each other where sharky was born from a zamboni and where the chomp was born every single time the sharks jumped on the power play the building today remains in remarkably good shape there are still agricultural events here and quite a few electronic music festivals but if only these walls could talk about their history they’ve hosted the likes of elvis the beatles the 1975 nba championship evil conval hundreds of livestock events and yes almost everything else in sports and entertainment you can imagine in between those first two seasons of the sharks existence here feel kind of magical now more than 30 years removed back then we didn’t even know how great we’d eventually have it at san jose arena but at the time the cow palace felt like a great place to just get things started to some degree this building is like a living museum of sharks history you can still walk up these two plus flights of stairs to reach the team’s very first dressing room that’s right imagine skating a full 60 minutes plus some overtime back in the day and then taking those tired legs up these very same stairs afterwards and the quarters inside certainly don’t resemble an nhl room of 2025 but again that’s kind of the history here this is how far the nhl has come in the last few decades what a first home goal for the shark also still on site some of this building’s original hockey goal cages dating back to the 1970s and that’s in addition to the gold cages used by the sharks in the early9s as well as the old-fashioned turn styles that sharks fans used to enter the building through there’s also the original gold judge booths and even these original concourse level seats this week we’ll be revisiting the cow palace with randy han and dan rousenowski who were among the original sharks broadcast team andrew ramena current broadcaster who was one of the sharks original assistant coaches [Music] as we’re all rightfully excited about the future of this franchise its origins are equally captivating

Brodie Brazil revisits the roots of the San Jose Sharks, taking us back to where it all began at the Cow Palace. Explore the original home of the team’s first two seasons, then and now.