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Worcester Sharks

American ice hockey team

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ267912
Source-derived summary

The Worcester Sharks were a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) that played from 2006 to 2015. Affiliated with the National Hockey League's San Jose Sharks and located in Worcester, Massachusetts, the Sharks played their home games at the DCU Center.

History

On November 9, 2004, the St. Louis Blues announced the sale of the Worcester IceCats to the owners of their ECHL affiliate, the Peoria Rivermen. The new owners moved the franchise to Peoria, Illinois, for the 2005–06 season. Shocked by the loss of the IceCats, the people of Worcester bargained with several National Hockey League (NHL) franchises, trying to bring hockey back to the city. On January 6, 2006, the San Jose Sharks announced they were moving their AHL affiliate, the Cleveland Barons, to Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Worcester Sharks played their first home game on October 14, 2006, in front of a sold-out 7,230 fans in a shootout loss to the Portland Pirates. The Sharks qualified for the playoffs in their inaugural season, but were eliminated in six games by the Manchester Monarchs in the first round.

The Sharks' main rivals were the Providence Bruins, the genesis of which dates back to IceCats' days.

The Sharks were well represented in the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, with former Sharks Joe Pavelski (played for the United States), Douglas Murray (represented Sweden) along with the goaltending tandem from the franchise's first two years with Thomas Greiss and Dimitri Patzold played for Germany.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Worcester Sharks” is american ice hockey team. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Worcester, Sharks and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 2015, 2004, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2006. For this dossier, Worcester, Sharks and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american ice hockey team” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q267912. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2015, 2004 and 2005.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Worcester Sharks”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Worcester Sharks primary sources, Worcester Sharks archive and Worcester research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Worcester Sharks”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Worcester Sharks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.