Pacific coach Bob Thomason confirms that Cal will play a return game against the Tigers next season, but not in the 6,150-seat Spanos Center on-campus facility.

The game will be held at the downtown Stockton Arena, which is home to minor-league hockey and indoor football and soccer, and seats 10,000. Pacific has not played a game in the building.

“We’ve been waiting to play a game there and I think Cal will be a great attraction,” Thomason said. “We’ve been trying to get Gonzaga or Stanford. With Cal, obviously, they have a lot of boosters around this area.

“It’s really nice,” he said of the arena. “It’ll be loud.”

Cal and Pacific open their schedules in a clash Saturday at Haas Pavilion at 5 p.m. It’s the first meeting between the schools in nine seasons.

New coach Mike Montgomery is happy to be playing Pacific and USF — traditional Northern California rivals — but doesn’t sound like he’s married to putting them on the Golden Bears’ schedule every year.

Monty understands there are fans out there who’d like to see Cal play those teams and others in the Bay Area, including Saint Mary’s. It’s not that simple, he said.

“I think it’s good to play those people. I think you need to play all the people every now and again, but I don’t think you need to get stuck on it,” he said at his weekly press gathering Monday. “You’re trying to get a well-rounded schedule from a travel standpoint, trying to get a well-rounded schedule from the level of play.”

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