California Golden Seals: An interview with Mark Greczmiel

5Mark Greczmiel, producer of “The California Golden Seals Story”, talks about how his now popular documentary dives into the history of one of the NHL’s most infamous and forgotten franchises.

The San Jose Sharks have been one of the NHL’s most successful teams of the 21st century. It’s hard to remember, but the Sharks weren’t the NHL’s first foray into Northern California. That distinction belongs to the long-gone California Golden Seals. Before the Sharks skated with their blue and teal, the Golden Seals skated with their green and yellow, along with those white skates.

A few weeks ago, an article about the Sharks potentially wearing Golden Seals throwbacks caught the attention of Mark Greczmiel, the television producer who helmed the documentary “The California Golden Seals Story”. Greczmiel and I were able to connect to discuss the history and legacy of one of the NHL’s most forgotten franchises.

Right off the bat, he made it clear how much making the film was a labor of love. The producer, who had found success working on projects such as those for E Television network, called the experience the most rewarding of his career.

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The first topic of conversation was what the Golden Seals remain most famous for: the infamous white skates. This gimmick, championed by then-owner Charles Finley, is known more its failure than its success. Its legend has become so noteworthy that a pair resides in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“When I asked the players, the closing questions was ‘when people ask you about the Seals, what do they ask you about?’ And everyone, even the guys that didn’t wear them, is asked about the white skates. That’s the one thing they ask about, the polar bear white skates.”

If the skates were bad in person, they were even worse for the fans at home.

“This was a time when people had black and white TV’s, so the white skates would blend in, and it would look like the players were skating on stumps.”

It was interesting Greczmiel brought up the Seals televised history. Later on, in a different question, I asked him why the Seals stayed in Oakland as long as they did. After all, a team with all the one ice woes it had would have at least found considerable success in a locale like Greczmiel’s native Vancouver, where the Seals were rumored to relocate.

“The NHL really wanted to have a foothold in California and that was part of the deal the NHL had with CBS when they expanded from six to twelve teams. CBS demanded that there would be two hockey teams in California, which were two of the biggest TV markets in the country.”

Greczmiel jokingly referred to the Seals as “the franchise where everything that could go wrong did go wrong”. The long list of problems the franchise faced included coaching problems, lack of finances, and an exodus of talent to the upstart World Hockey Association.

The Seals were the unlucky NHL franchise to lose more players to the WHA than any other team. Greczmiel also points to economics and competition as part of the franchise’s short-lived downfall.

“When they started, the price was too expensive. They didn’t do a lot of marketing. In the Bay Area, you had the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland Athletics, the Raiders, the Warriors, the ABA Oakland Oaks, the San Francisco 49ers, and all the college teams. So there were a lot of sports going on at the time.”

Greczmiel also talked about how ownership woes played into the Seal’s demise. The Seals were at one time famously owned by the flamboyant Athletics owner Charles Finley. In his introductory press conference after buying the team, Finley famously exclaimed, “I know absolutely nothing about hockey”.

Those were definitely not the words players, management and fans wanted to hear from the eventual creator of the white skates. Finley’s ownership led to a comradery among Bay area athletes. Seals players were common fixtures at Athletics games, including their World Series championships in the early 1970s.

A’s players would also attend Seals games. Some even took part in on-ice activities. Greczmiel explained that it was not uncommon to see Hall of Famers like pitcher Catfish Hunter participating in puck shooting contest during intermissions.

Even if ice hockey in the 1960s was a tough sell for the Northern California market, the players loved the atmosphere. When I asked Greczmiel about how the players responded to the area, it was an easy question to answer – they absolutely loved it.

“The players universally loved playing in the Bay Area, They loved the weather. A lot of hockey players are golf players. On their days off, they’d go down to Pebble Beach and play golf there. They loved the California lifestyle. And there wasn’t pressure. If you’re a hockey player in Montreal or Toronto, you’re living under a microscope.”

Today, the Sharks are thriving as one of the NHL’s most successful franchises in the same market the Seals struggled to find a foothold in. The major factor that Greczmiel points out in the successor franchise’s success is their advanced marketing department that skillfully devised a way to enter the market in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the Seals marketing efforts were primitive at best and sometimes controversial.

“To generate publicity, the marketing teams hired the girlfriend of one of the stick boys. They had her skate out in between periods, cross the ice and the players came on, totally naked just wearing skates.”

“And they made sure all the photographers were told, ‘just stand over there, and something may be happening’. It was just a huge amount of coverage. And it was all set up – they paid the girl to do that.”

It’s hard to imagine a risque stunt of that caliber happening in today’s NHL. Still, the streaker takes a distant back seat in things the Seals are remembered for behind the white skates. Who knew the white skates would be such a big deal.

When I asked him what they thought of the new Sharks franchise and if they felt a part of it, he said they felt part of Northern California hockey history, but not so much the Sharks organization. According to Greczmiel, only a few former Seals still make their home in the Bay Area.

Aside from a very loose ownership succession of the Gunn brothers, who owned the Seal/Barons franchise to merge it with the Minnesota North Stars, to later sell that team and be awarded the expansion San Jose Sharks, there is no direct connection between the NHL’s two teams in the area.

The Sharks had a Golden Seals tribute night a few seasons ago. Greczmiel joined many of their former players that were in attendance. After so many years away from the ice, they collectively wondered what their reception for the evening would be likely. They were in for a pleasant surprise.

“ a very emotional thing for me and the players that attended. In early 2017, the Sharks had a Golden Seals Tribute Night. They invited a number of players and I was in the room before the game with the players, and they were kind of wondering ‘does anyone really care about us anymore?’”

“It’s been so many years. The plan was we went to the front of the arena and they had set up some tables for players to sign autographs. When the doors opened and they were giving away t-shirts, everyone got a t-shirt that night, they were mobbed with people who beelined to get autographs.”

“One of the players’ wives, Giles Meloche’s wife, sold me out. There was a guy who was talking to her husband ‘here’s the stick you signed for me back when I was a teenager’, so they were really flabbergasted and kind of pleased.”

If anyone would like to hear more about the wild ride that was the California Golden Seals, I encourage you to watch Greczmiel’s documentary, available in full on iTunes. While the Seals may not be around anymore, some of their fans have survived and still hold a booster club in the Bay area. They certainly are gone, but not forgotten.

Once again a huge thank you to the very gracious Mark Greczmiel for sharing his knowledge and passion for the Golden Seals. It is because he took the initiative to make this documentary that a different generation gets to experience one roller coaster of an NHL franchise. It is through his efforts that hockey history lives on.