Animal Rights Activists Protest Longtime San Jose Tradition Of Throwing Great White Sharks Onto Ice During Games

Calling the practice “barbaric” a local chapter of the ASPCA has taken to picketing all San Jose Sharks home games at SAP Center to protest the longstanding fan tradition of hurling a great white shark onto the middle of the ice during stoppages of play.

“This isn’t a harmless prank; these are endangered species, not something for you and your friends to sneak into a stadium under your coat,” said one protestor, Daniela Henriquez. “Lobbing a confused, 1.5-metric-ton fish onto the ice is just cruel. Not only to the poor, terrified refs and their traumatized families, but also to the shark.”

According to legend, the shark toss became popular as early as San Jose’s first season in 1991, when a drunken spectator took the opportunity to interrupt the second intermission by chucking a 20-foot, 3,700-pound female great white. An interview with the spectator’s widow confirmed that the shark’s seven fins were supposed to symbolize the seven goals the Sharks were anticipated to score that season.

Even as more people are starting to become discomfited by shark tossing, however, others have rallied to its cause, claiming that the history behind it is too important to give up.

“You can’t just take a 30-year, 5,000-casualty tradition and suddenly decide it’s ‘wrong,’” said serial shark-thrower Adam Merz, speaking to reporters from inside the Critical Care Ward at O’Connor Hospital in downtown San Jose. “My old man gave me my first shark to throw when I was only eight. And I’ll remember the look of appreciation mixed with the blood curdling screams of pain that Pat Falloon gave me until the day I die.”

Although some may choose to continue it, the newfound uproar over shark tossing has forced a serious reconsideration of several other NHL traditions, such as Phoenix Coyotes fans’ use of partially digested stray cats in their paraphernalia, or Anaheim Ducks fans’ decades-long tradition of kidnapping Emilio Estevez and tying him to the jumbotron before games.