HP Pavilion at San Jose The HP Pavilion at San Jose , formerly known as Compaq Center at San Jose and San Jose Arena is an indoor arena , located at 525 West Santa Clara Street , in San Jose , California . The arena is also commonly called The Shark Tank or The Tank , both of which come from its primary tenant , the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League . History . Plans for an arena in San Jose go back to the mid - 1980s , when a group of local citizens formed Fund Arena Now ( FAN ) , a group dedicated to getting an indoor arena built in the city . The group spent much of its time pushing city officials to build such a structure while at the same time selling the possibility of the building to interested groups , namely NHL and NBA franchises . In the late 1980s , then - San Jose mayor Tom McEnery met with FAN and helped to make their plans reality . Eventually , a measure was introduced that would allocate local taxes toward building an arena in San Jose ' s growing downtown , which would be voted on June 7 , 1988 . The measure passed by a narrow margin : 73 , 409 to 64 , 140 . The plans for the arena would eventually be one of the reasons that George and Gordon Gund would locate their new Bay Area NHL franchise in San Jose , which would eventually become the San Jose Sharks . Construction of the arena began in 1991 , and was originally slated to open in 1992 . The construction ran into a rather sizable delay , however , when the management for the San Jose Sharks realized the arena had been designed for community use , and that it needed a drastic redesign to upgrade the arena to NHL standards . Most notably , the original arena design had no luxury suites or a press box , with the introduction of the former to the original plans would have reduced the arena ' s seating capacity to 14 , 000 . The time taken to redesign the arena delayed the opening of the building to 1993 , forcing the Sharks to play an additional season at the Cow Palace . The arena opened in 1993 as the San Jose Arena . In 2001 , naming rights were sold to Compaq , and the facility became Compaq Center at San Jose ; the geographic identifier was needed because at the time , there was a Compaq Center in Houston . After HP purchased Compaq in 2002 , the company chose to name the arena the HP Pavilion , a moniker given to the venue after one of HP ' s prevalent computer models . It was announced in late April 2007 that the HP Pavilion at San Jose would be receiving several building improvements , including a new centerhung LED video display system from Daktronics similar to that of the TD Banknorth Garden , home of the Boston Bruins of the NHL . With the addition of the new video and sound system , the existing control room was transformed into an additional luxury suite . A new video control room was constructed on the lower level of the arena . The sound console was moved to the broadcast pit , joining Sharks TV , Sharks radio , and visiting TV . Visiting radio was moved to an auxiliary location in the catwalk on the bench side of the arena . Tenants . HP Pavilion at San Jose houses the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League and the San Jose SaberCats of the Arena Football League . It is also the venue for the annual SAP Open men ' s tennis tournament . The facility has also been home to the Golden State Warriors of the NBA during reconstruction of the Oakland Coliseum Arena , and the defunct San Jose Rhinos of RHI , San Jose Grizzlies of the CISL and the San Jose Stealth of the National Lacrosse League . Other events . HP Pavilion hosts an average of 190 events a year , including many non - sporting events . In 2006 , the HP Pavilion sold the most tickets to non - sporting events of any venue in the Western United States , and the fourth highest total in the world , after Madison Square Garden in New York City , the Manchester Evening News Arena in Manchester , and the Air Canada Centre in Toronto . It has also played host for other sporting events , such as the U . S . Figure Skating Championships , the NCAA Basketball tournament ( known as " March Madness " ) , the Pac - 10 women ' s basketball championship , and the Dew Action Sports Tour . HP Pavilion hosts the Ringling Bros . and Barnum & Bailey Circus every year . Trains are usually parked in nearby Milpitas . However , in 2008 , the train was parked on the Vasona Branch .