THE NHL / STEVE SPRINGER : In Bay Area, Expansion Sharks Hit the Parks in Part of Attack Plan

They already have sold more than half the seats in their hockey arena. They have locked up a commercial television deal for four years. And they are putting together a street hockey program involving 10,000 to 12,000 kids.

Not bad for a team without players or coaches.

The San Jose Sharks, newest club in the NHL, are still six months away from their first game. But the Bay Area appears already to have taken them to heart.

The club has sold 6,000 season tickets--1,000 in the past six to eight weeks--for the team’s first season in the 10,800-seat Cow Palace in San Francisco. Team officials hope to sell as many as 9,000 season tickets.

After two seasons in San Francisco, the Sharks expect to move into their new 18,000-seat arena in San Jose.

Season tickets range from $492 for the $12 seats to $2,255 for the $55 seats. There are 1,000 seats in the most expensive category, but fewer than a third remain.

The Sharks have completed an agreement with KICU-TV, which televises the Oakland Athletics and Golden State Warriors, to show 30 games a season for the next four years.

The Sharks are hoping to add a radio station and cable package.

Adult amateur hockey leagues already are big in the area. Hockey North America sanctions a program that has more than 1,000 participants in Northern California.

But to promote their own team, the Sharks are distributing sticks and pucks to set up street hockey leagues in the area in a program called “Sharks and Parks.”

All of this enthusiasm has helped calm fears that a hockey team would have about as much chance of success in the Bay Area as an Al Davis fan club.

After all, the track record is not good. A quarter-century ago, the Oakland Seals of the NHL began skating through 10 years of near anonymity, never drawing more than an average of 6,400 fans a season.

Changing their name to the California Golden Seals didn’t help. Neither did moving to Cleveland.

The team eventually merged with the Minnesota North Stars, whose former owners, George and Gordon Gund, sold their interest in the North Stars so they could get the San Jose team.

Because an NHL expansion club carries a price tag of $50 million, the Gunds felt that was the least they should get for the North Stars.

They finally settled for $38 million, along with a complicated agreement, still undergoing revision, that will allow the Sharks to get 30 players from Minnesota.

The formula for this dispersal draft, to be held in late spring: The North Stars protect 14 skaters and two goalies. Then, the Sharks take 14 skaters and two goalies.

The Sharks then get another pick from the players remaining in the 80-man Minnesota organization.

The North Stars can then protect one more player.

The process is repeated until the Sharks have 30 players.

Negotiations are continuing, however, because Minnesota would like to protect a few more of its younger players, preferring to give San Jose a few additional veterans.

The Sharks also will get 10 players from a league-wide expansion draft June 17. And, of course, from the full draft on June 22.

Because of the players they are surrendering, the North Stars also will get 10 players from the expansion draft.

The whole situation has produced tension between the two organizations.

For instance, when Bill Goldsworthy, among the top few players in Minnesota history, returns to the Met Center to watch the North Stars in his new capacity as a scout for the Sharks, he is more than welcome to sit anywhere he wants.

As long as he buys a ticket.

Add Sharks: The team has a general manager in Jack Ferreira, but still no coach.

Speculation has centered on George Kingston, a former Minnesota assistant currently coaching Norway’s national team.

A big minus of plus-minus: The plus-minus rating is considered an accurate barometer by some and worthless by others.

It works simply. When the teams are even strength: a player gets plus-1 if is on the ice when his team scores; he gets a minus-1 if he’s on the ice when the other team scores.

Certainly a player on a team such as the Quebec Nordiques, the worst defensive club in the league, figures to have a lower plus-minus rating than someone on the Chicago Blackhawks, the team with the fewest goals allowed.

In theory, the plus-minus rating indicates a player’s value in relation to his teammates.

But take the case of King defenseman Marty McSorley. His rating is a plus-43, second in the league. He has been having a pretty good season defensively while contributing 36 points offensively, but is he really 18 points better than Wayne Gretzky, plus-25 on the rating scale; or 38 better than Rob Blake, plus-5, who has become a defensive star for the Kings?

That’s not a knock on McSorley, but on the rating system.

It makes about as much sense in some cases as penalizing an outfielder because he happens to be on the field when his pitcher gives up a home run.

The silliness of the system was demonstrated the other night in Vancouver.

During a changeover, McSorley made a pass that Tomas Sandstrom couldn’t control. As the Canucks came up with the puck, on came defensemen Larry Robinson and Blake. By the time they had skated into position, Vancouver’s Geoff Courtnall was beginning his game-winning shot.

Nothing they could do at that point, but they each got a minus for being on the ice when the goal was scored. And McSorley, who made the pass, was safely on the bench, his rating unaffected.

There has to be a better way.