The San Diego Gulls are flocking back to the San Diego Sports Arena this weekend. The junior team will play its opening homestand against Fresno Oct. 2-4 at the arena as part of a full weekend of puck that will celebrate past, present and future hockey in San Diego. “We\u2019re trying to give them more exposure, to show everybody that we still have a junior team in town here. Let\u2019s go support them,” said former Gulls star Martin St. Amour. The Gulls\u2019 three-game homestand is sandwiched around the second annual game between Gulls alumni and the military. The game, which will raise money for local military and local youth hockey programs, is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sports Arena, preceded by the Gulls game against Fresno at 4:30 p.m. “It\u2019s a chance for [fans] to come and see the old players that were there and also do a good deed by giving some money to the military,” St. Amour said. St. Amour said last year\u2019s charity game at the San Diego Ice Arena in Mira Mesa was not advertised, but 1,200 people showed up and some had to be turned away. The game itself will be fun and light \u2013 at least as light as hockey can be. “It\u2019s a very fun, pleasant game. It\u2019s going to be a lot of fun for everybody,” St. Amour said. “There\u2019s a lot of laughs; it\u2019s not taken too seriously and we just enjoy it.” St. Amour is one of the main attractions of the game. He played for the Gulls from 1995 to 2003 and also coached the team for two years. In the 1995-\u201996 season, St. Amour scored 61 goals and 48 assists, helping lead the Gulls to their first of three consecutive Taylor Cup championships. Another Gulls alum at the game will be B.J. MacPherson, who will play in the game eight years after doctors told him he couldn\u2019t walk. In a 2001 game in Boise, MacPherson suffered a dislocated neck, ruptured vertebrae and had his heart stop on the ice following a cheap shot. “I took him to the hospital and I was there all night with him. It\u2019s really hard to imagine when a doctor tells you that you\u2019re never going to walk again and now he\u2019s going to play with us. It\u2019s just unbelievable,” St. Amour said. St. Amour expects a strong reaction when MacPherson steps back out on the ice. And that will just be from the players themselves. “It\u2019s going to be great to see him on skates,” St. Amour said. “Everybody knew B.J. that played with us or played against us. It\u2019s going to be a major thrill to see him skate.” The current Gulls play Fresno on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at noon. They returned to action last year after the team folded in 2006. Consequently, the level of play is a little bit different. The new version of the Gulls is a junior hockey team of amateurs who play in the Western States Hockey League, a Junior B league. Gulls teams of past lore were National Hockey League affiliates filled with professionals. “These kids are finishing high school, starting college somewhere or doing some stuff where they still want to move on with hockey,” St. Amour said. St. Amour said the players on the Gulls range from 16 to 20 years old. The next step for them would be a major junior program or college hockey. “It\u2019s great hockey,” St. Amour said. “They\u2019re young, they\u2019re vibrant, they want it, and they want to move up.” After opening at the Sports Arena, the Gulls will return to the Iceoplex in Escondido, where they play their regular season games. The Gulls are currently third in the WSHL Western Division with six points (2-0-0-2). Youth hockey games will also take place at the Sports Arena during the weekend. St. Amour said about a dozen youth teams will take the ice over the three-day span. “Youth hockey (in San Diego) is moving up right now \u2013 it\u2019s doing fairly well,” St. Amour said. A ticket for all four games costs $15 and tickets will be available at the door. For more information, visit www.sandiegogullshockeyclub.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The San Diego Gulls are flocking back to the San Diego Sports Arena this weekend. The junior team will play its opening homestand against Fresno Oct. 2-4 at the arena as part of a full weekend of puck that will celebrate past, present and future hockey in San Diego. “We\u2019re trying to give them more […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Gulls return to home nest for opening weekend","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}