A Forgotten Franchise

With the NHL season now just a week old and with the ECHL season beginning tonight, I figured that it would be a good time to look at a forgotten ECHL franchise that lasted all of a year and a half. You read that correctly, a year and a half. You see, the San Francisco Bulls were that team, and their history, although brief, was not without any drama.

Beginning with the 2012-13 season, the Bulls joined the ECHL with the idea that they would serve as their double-A affiliate to their fellow Bay Area occupants in the San Jose Sharks. The franchise initially benefited from the lockout that wiped out half of the NHL season. However, they suffered from the same problems that the Sharks faced in their initial years of existence, as in they played in a horribly outdated Cow Palace that needed a specially made scoreboard plus a support system that would hold that weight. That first year team actually didn't do badly, as they made the playoffs that year. Unfortunately, they ran into a buzzsaw known as the Alaska Aces, who were the top team in their conference. Because of the lockout, the Bulls were able to get the services of Torrey Mitchell for at least a game, as he signed with them in December of that season. The following year, however, the Bulls were in serious financial trouble, and those problems came to a head in January 2014, with rumors of the team either relocating or folding as of January 20. The following week, the team folded after they were unable to find new owners.

So, what is the team's legacy? Though there isn't much to gain from the team's short tenure, besides Mitchell, the Bulls did have another player make the NHL, as Yanni Gourde had played 8 games for the team and is now an integral part of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The ECHL venture for the Bay Area failed, but it would pave the way for the San Jose Sharks to eventually land an AHL team in their backyard, as realignment helped push the team's affiliate into an arena timeshare, as the San Jose Barracuda are now the Sharks' minor league affiliate and even share the same arena.