Calgary Flames

Team information

• Inaugural season: 1972
• Home arena: Scotiabank Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Owner: Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation
• Team colors: Red, yellow, black, and white

Overview

The Calgary Flames is a Canadian hockey team that plays in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). It began as an expansion team in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States in 1972 and moved to Calgary in 1980. After this, they became the second franchise to play in the Canadian province of Alberta, the first being the Edmonton Oilers. The Atlanta team took the Flames nickname from the fires that burned in Atlanta on November 14, 1864, after General William Sherman captured the city during the Civil War. Calgary has a large oil industry, so the name still seemed appropriate after the move. The team took home the President’s Trophy for having the most points in the regular season in 1987–1988 and in 1988–1989. It also won the Stanley Cup championship in 1988–1989.

History

On September 13, 1971, the World Hockey Association (WHA) was founded as a competitor to the NHL. The NHL began with four teams in 1917. After some ups and downs in team numbers, the league settled at six teams by 1942. Its first expansion was in 1967 when the league doubled in size to twelve. Two more teams were added in 1970, bringing the total to fourteen. Only three of these were located in Canada, which was considered to be the birthplace of hockey. The WHA sought to gain ground against the much stronger NHL by operating in underserved markets. In 1971, the league announced plans for franchises in twelve cities, eight of which did not have an NHL franchise.

The NHL reacted to this by awarding two new franchises for the 1972–1973 season. The first was the New York Islanders, the second NHL franchise in New York. The second was a team in Atlanta, housed in the Omni Coliseum. The owners were the same investors who owned the Atlanta Hawks National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise. This group of investors was headed by Tom Cousins, an Atlanta real estate developer.

The Flames encountered challenges from the start. The original owners had planned for an Atlanta NHL franchise before the WHA began operations. The WHA altered some of their projections. The Flames were now the only team in the American Southeast. In addition, the team had mediocre in-person attendance and was unable to land a contract for broadcast rights to its games to increase interest.

Despite all this, the team did relatively well on the ice. The Atlanta Flames made the playoffs in six of their eight seasons and finished fourth in the Western Conference in 1973–1974. However, their performance was not enough to help them overcome growing financial problems. Cousins decided to sell the team before it was forced into bankruptcy. The team was sold to Nelson Skalbania and a group of businesspeople from Calgary for $16 million, the most ever paid for an NHL franchise until then. Although Atlanta fans tried to keep the team in Georgia, they were unsuccessful. The new owners announced that the team would move to Calgary on May 21, 1980.

The newly renamed Calgary Flames were an immediate hit on and off the ice. Fans bought more than ten thousand full and partial season ticket packages to see them play in the Stampede Corral, which had a hockey capacity of seven thousand. The Flames made it to the playoffs in their inaugural season in Calgary, beating the Chicago Black Hawks in the first round and the Philadelphia Flyers in the second round. They lost in the conference semi-finals to the Minnesota North Stars.

The next several years were not as successful, though, and the team made a number of roster changes to try to improve its performance. This included signing players from Europe, attempting to sign players from Russia, and recruiting some from the collegiate ranks. The Flames were among the first in the NHL to look for talent in all these places. These moves, combined with trades to bring in players from other NHL teams, helped the team to game seven in its 1984 series division finals against the Edmonton Oilers, who became the league champions.

Success continued the following season and for several more. Between 1985 and 1990, the team mounted several challenges for the Stanley Cup, recording two appearances in the cup final and beating the Montreal Canadiens four games to two in the 1988–1989 final to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. It won the President’s Cup as the league’s leading point getter in 1987–1988 and 1988–1989.

The Flames made the playoffs in six of the next seven seasons but never advanced beyond the conference semi-finals. This was followed by a seven-year playoff drought. The team finally ended this in 2003–2004 when it once again advanced to the Stanley Cup final round, losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning three games to four. In the years following the 2004–2005 labor dispute lockout, the Flames made the playoffs in seven seasons and failed to qualify in seven others through the 2018–2019 season.

In 2019, head coach Bill Peters was dismissed after he was accused of making racist comments and physically abusing Akim Alui, a Nigerian-born Ukrainian player, when they were both with the Rockford IceHogs in the American Hockey League. Alui played for the Flames in 2011–2012 and 2012–2013.

Flames fans are known for supporting their team with a “C of red,” a play on the team’s home jersey color and the large “C” that is part of the logo. During the 1985–1986 Stanley Cup Playoffs, fans of the Edmonton Oilers turned up in force, wearing hats to throw on the ice in anticipation of winning a third Cup. Fans in Calgary responded by wearing red and creating a “sea of red” in their arena. Demand for Flames jerseys was so high that manufacturers stopped making all other team jerseys to keep up.

Notable players

The Flames have retired three player numbers. The first was that of right winger Lanny McDonald, who played with the team from 1981–1989. McDonald is one of the five former Flames who has been inducted into the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame after playing most of his games in a Flames’ jersey. During his time with the Flames, McDonald won several NHL awards for dedication to hockey and/or humanitarian efforts, including the 1982–1983 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, the 1987–1988 King Clancy Memorial Trophy and the NHL Man of the Year award for 1988–1989.

Jarome Iginla, a right winger who played with the Flames from 1996 to 2013, holds the team’s all-time records for career points, with 1,095, and career goals, with 525. His 570 career assists are second on the team’s all-time list. He won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the league’s leading goal scorer in 2002 and 2004, and the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s point leader for 2002 as well. He also won the 2002 Lester B. Pearson Trophy as the league’s most valuable player as voted by the players.

The third number retired by the Flames belonged to goalie Mike Vernon. Vernon played several stints with the Flames over his career, with the longest being nine seasons between 1985 and 1994. During that time, he played in five all-star games and backstopped the team’s 1989 Stanley Cup run. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2023.

Al MacInnis, whose 609 career assists remain the team record, is another Hall of Fame player who spent most of his career with the Flames. MacInnis wore a Flames jersey between 1981 and 1994. He was part of the franchise’s 1989 Stanley Cup team and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs.

Another Flames Hall of Fame player is Joe Mullen. The New York-born Mullen played with the team between 1985 and 1990 and was also part of the team’s Stanley Cup effort in 1989. He was a two-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly conduct and won the plus/minus award for 1988–1989. This award recognizes the balance between a player’s offensive and defensive skills by subtracting the number of times a player is on the ice for an opposing team’s goal from the number of times he is on the ice when his team scores.

Sergei Makarov, one of the Russian players drafted by the Flames, is the fifth player who spent most of his career as a member of the Flames to enter the Hall of Fame. Drafted in 1983, Makarov could not join the team until he and other Russian players were released by Russia in 1989. He won the Calder Memorial Trophy as rookie of the year in 1989 when he was thirty-one years old.

The Flames also have a special program called “Forever a Flame.” This provides special recognition to a retired player who made a significant contribution to the team without taking his number out of circulation. MacInnis was the first player recognized by the program. Joe Nieuwendyk, a left-shooting center who played with the team between 1986 and 1995, was also honored. Both players have banners with their image and jersey number hanging from the rafters in the Flames’ home rink.

Bibliography

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"Calgary Flames Hall of Fame Players." Stat Muse, 2023, www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/calgary-flames-hall-of-fame-players. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

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“Calgary Flames Team History.” Sports Team History, 2020, sportsteamhistory.com/calgary-flames. Accessed 19 Mar. 2020.

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Miller, Ed. “The WHA – A Look Back at the Upstart Hockey League.” Hockey Writers, 6 July 2019. thehockeywriters.com/the-wha-a-look-back-40-years-later/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.

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