Joey Payeur
Forgive Jon Gustafson if he hasn’t been seen in public much lately.
“I just came out of the dark room a couple of days ago,” the Fort Frances native joked Friday from his office in what he still insists is sunny California even in the wake of his NHL employer’s gloomy end to the season.
As vice-president of Sharks Ice LLC and director of merchandising for the San Jose Sharks, it was a bittersweet pill to swallow for Gustafson to watch the Sharks fall in six games to the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this month in San Jose’s first appearance in the Stanley Cup final.
“There’s 30 teams vying for the same thing so to be one of the last two left, that’s pretty special,” reasoned the former starting goalie for the Muskie boys’ hockey team, who knows a thing or two about championships having backstopped the black-and-gold to their first OFSAA title back in 1986.
“I’ve been here 18 years and there have been some challenging years in there,” Gustafson admitted.
“But we’ve been fortunate to have some very, very good teams.
“We’ve made the playoffs 10 of the past 12 years and not very many teams in the league can say that,” he noted.
“To get to the final is a whole different level,” he added. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get it done but I’m so very proud of the team.”
Gustafson, among the inaugural members of the Fort Frances Sports Hall of Fame, got busier as the spring went on—and the farther the Sharks advanced in the playoffs.
“I wear a number of different hats and being that I oversee all our merchandise, that was the most significant impact on me,” he remarked.
“It was a big job to provide and have new product ready on a game-by-game basis, and make sure there was enough product.
“We have five stores in the SAP Center alone [the Sharks’ home arena] and each one of our three ice facilities also has a store,” Gustafson noted.
“It was three times, four times, sometimes 10 times busier than normal,” he recalled.
“It’s certainly better for business the closer you get to the Cup.”
While making sure to keep a watchful eye over his business obligations with the Sharks, including managing the organization’s different public-use ice venues in San Jose, Oakland, and Fremont, Gustafson wasn’t immune to getting swept up in the joy of a city’s fan base that had never seen its team play so deep into the spring.
“I’ve been fortunate to have been in a lot of different places and there is nothing like a playoff game in San Jose,” he remarked.
Gustafson said the tone was set right from the get-go.
“Not saying it got the monkey off our backs, but I think to beat L.A. in the first series helped exorcise the demons of the past,” he reasoned, referring to the Kings ousting the Sharks in seven games in both 2013 and 2014.
The latter of those saw San Jose become only the fourth team in NHL history to lose a best-of-seven series after leading 3-0.
“We went seven games against Nashville, but with a couple of bounces, that could have been over in five or six,” Gustafson noted.
“I think against St. Louis [in the conference final], we played our best hockey,” he added.
“They were very similar to us but we played the game the way we can play.”
Then in the final, the Sharks fell behind 2-0 on a pair of one-goal losses, but struck back with a Game 3 overtime victory on home ice before losing Game 4.
Facing a charged-up Penguins’ home crowd wanting to celebrate a Cup-clinching victory, San Jose beat the odds in Game 5 and grabbed a 4-2 victory despite getting outshot 46-22.
That game—and much of the series—revolved around the heroics of Sharks’ goalie Martin Jones, whose acquisition from the Boston Bruins for a first-round draft pick turned out to be a key move.
“We [had] no first-round pick this year and that’s OK because I would take Martin Jones every time,” Gustafson stressed.
“I first saw him in the AHL with the [L.A.] Kings’ farm team, the Manchester Monarchs, and he absolutely owned us. . . .
“He was the class act of the AHL in how he carried himself, so unflappable and extremely consistent.
[Sharks’ GM] Doug [Wilson] doesn’t get enough credit . . . the job he did this year was amazing,” lauded Gustafson.
“Getting Jones wasn’t easy,” he noted. “It took a significant amount of work to get him and when you give up a first-rounder, there’s always concern.
“But no one is losing sleep over it now. He’s going to be good for a long time.”
Gustafson chuckled when asked if he jumped on board in growing a playoff beard.
“I’m an old goalie so I’m as superstitious as they get,” he laughed.
“But I have to remember I’m part of an organization, not a player anymore, so you can’t continue things like that.
“It’s not me to be like that in my position,” Gustafson added. “But you won’t find two better beards than ‘Burnsie’ [Brent Burns] and ‘Jumbo’ [Joe Thornton], and the best part is they’re even better guys.
“Our guys, as a group, are unbelievable human beings.”
While the off-season now is in full swing for the players, there’s little down time for Gustafson.
He zipped into Fort Frances this past weekend to spend a couple of days at his cabin before jetting east to take part in the annual AHL meetings (he also is vice-president of Sharks Minor Holdings LLC, which oversees the business operations of the team’s AHL franchise, the Worcester Sharks).
Then there’s the start of budget planning for the next fiscal year for the Worcester club, as well as Sharks Ice, whose trio of facilities house what Gustafson claims is the largest adult hockey league in the U.S.
“The job never goes away,” conceded the Muskie legend, who does intend to spend at least two weeks later this summer in his old stomping grounds to see family and friends.
“I’m busier in the summer than the winter because hockey is so prevalent down there,” he noted.
“It doesn’t stop, which is great.”
