by Larry Leavitt

DALY CITY–Team sources say that the San Francisco Bulls will fold or move from the Cow Palace in Daly City as early as next week. Pat Curcio head coach and team owner said that the team is having not only issues with drawing fans at the gate but the team’s landlord at the Cow Palace are not the most cooporative management. Curcio and the Bulls have had to melt the ice several times to meet the Cow Palace schedule for shows on demand, a Rodeo, Dog show and now a Miley Cirus concert coming.

The Bulls who are the main tenant in the building feel they are not being treated as the main tenant siting one of the many reasons why the team wants to move. The reason they may fold also is financial the team lost $2 million last season and if the team can not make it’s budget which includes payroll and overhead they will have to close business. Their gate has been a small draw to say the least on some nights they’ve drawn crowds of 500 or less fans.

Curcio has poured a lot of his and his investors money into the team and the improvements of the Cow Palace with a new speaker system to the icing refridgeration system for the ice has run the team into the millions. The Bulls are considering locating to either Fresno or the Oakland Coliseum Arena the former home of the NHL California Golden Seals. The Bulls are hoping for this latter option. The Coliseum is hosting an ice show in February and it is the team’s hopes that they can play a couple of games there and get the draw.

The Bulls like the BART access that the Coliseum gives something that the Cow Palace does not provide. Curcio’s thinking in this is if the Bulls can get the fans from the East Bay to come by train and drive they can develop a new fan base and they would expect a better crowd for their home games drawing from some East Bay cities that already present a hockey interest. The Bulls a Sharks affiliate are independent and will get no financial help from the Sharks.

Curcio will be in a league meeting in Philadelphia to discuss the future of the Bulls on Tuesday to get league approval for a move or worse to fold up business. This question hangs in the balance as the league and Curcio will look at the team finances, how the Cow Palace landlords treated the Bulls, and the possibilities of moving to Fresno or Oakland to name a few issues.

Game Schedule upcoming if team lasts: It’s an ineresting schedule the San Francisco Bulls played the Stockton Thunder Sunday afternoon and they started the game mid-day and their rival to the NFC Championship game on television and it took the crowd away from that game and the crowd was quite into it as they were watching the big football game. The Thunder none the less and the Bulls tied this game up at 2-2 and at the end of the game of overtime they went to the shootout.

The skills competition went over and fortunately for the Bulls they scored more goals in the shootout and took home the two points which they really needed they had a little bit of problems on the road with Ontario and Bakersfield and now their coming home for some homecooking on Thursday the 30th versus Stockton (again) and Friday the 31st against the Colorado Eagles both at the Cow Palace.

The Bulls after last Thursday’s game in Stockton are now taking off ten straight days before the game on the 30th and it’s the ECHL who does the scheduling and the Bulls don’t do it themselves. It’s kind of an odd schedule and they need to take advantage of it to be honest with you and they need to get some practice in.

They do have from the 20th through the 29th they can practice for power plays, they practice their penalty kills, and it could only help them in the future. This is one of those weird stretches that they have a week and half off at home and they can really do some damage if they put their mind to it.

Larry Leavitt does Pro Hockey commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio