TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – The Tallahassee Tiger Sharks played in the Capital City from 1994-2001. After those seven seasons, the team was relocated to Macon, GA. On Wednesday, we took a look back at the Tiger Sharks stint in Tallahassee.
Former team player, front office staffer, and broadcaster Cory Paterson spoke about the fall off of the Tiger Sharks.
“The first three years of a team, the staff in the office tend to be, for lack of a better word, lazy. Because the arena’s selling out, everything is going great,” he said. “We don’t need to be doing all these different things to sustain ourself. So the honeymoon period wore off, attendance dropped a little bit and the Tiger Sharks lost again. Once that snowball gets going, and gets going down the hill, it’s very very difficult to stop.”
Tallahassee hockey has been dormant for 24 years now, but Paterson is giving his best attempt at bringing the hockey team back from extinction.
The Tiger Sharks weren’t alone in failing to endure.
Many southern cities tried to support hockey. In fact, before the turn of the century, 17 East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) teams either started in, or relocated to, the south. Just one franchise survives unchanged.
Today, 17 teams across three minor hockey leagues exist in southern states. Many of them thrive in their cities.
“When you look at the attendance leaders of these other leagues. And I’m talking Fort Myers, Orlando, Jacksonville, Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, and some other teams that are scattered throughout that south, there’s one big gaping hole and it’s Tallahassee.”
Plus with four combined Stanley cups between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers over the last six years, the south has been transformed into a hockey hotbed.
But the question remains– what would be different with the Tiger Sharks this time?
“For a team to work here again, they have to have local ownership involved,” said Paterson.
In terms of facilities, “we would not just be able to rely on the civic center for ice,” he said. “[The team] needs their own practice facility. That would alleviate a ton of pressure from the civic center flipping the ice back and forth.”
In the sports community, a Tiger Sharks revival could be a perfect addition.
For fandom.
“We’re a fractured sports town, primarily we root for college. Everybody went to their own school,” said Paterson. “Tallahassee needs their own team.”
And for athletics.
“We could build a youth ice hockey program in this city that would be just phenomenal,” he said.
The Tiger Sharks were embraced once before and there’s little doubt it would happen again.
Fans cheer at the Leon County Civic Center in Tallahassee during a hockey game in the 1990’s.(WCTV)
“I wear a Tiger Sharks jersey in parades and what I hear from so many people is bring them back, bring them back,” said Greg Tish, a collector and former fan.
“Tallahassee’s grown, maybe we’re ready,” said Fran Brooks, a former season ticket holder.
The goal is to once again be an ECHL affiliate and a path to the biggest stage.
“Yes please. Bigger, better, stronger, faster,” said Sandra Golden, a former WCTV sports reporter who covering the team from 1994-1997. “Where are the tickets. The Tiger Sharks made hockey fans out of little old Tallahassee.”
Hints of that opening season frenzy from over three decades ago could lend a fin into their rebirth.
“We’re going to bring this guy back to life, and we’re going to have him representing Tiger Sharks hockey,” said Paterson, pointing to the head of the team’s former mascot. When asked if he meant that exact head, he said, “this head.”
It’s not just the mascot Paterson wants to bring back. He’s excited to revive the jersey from the first season with the pink color scheme.
There’s a lot more work to be done to green light the Tiger Sharks return. Paterson confirmed the city is on board. The next step is conducting meetings with Florida State University in the coming weeks.
Paterson is hopeful that the university will be open to sharing the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center with the people of Tallahassee to bring the shark tank back to life.
This situation is ongoing and updates will be provided as they’re made available.
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