Ladies and Gentlemen – Your Calgary Flames!
Calgary's NHL team has been hotter than their namesake over the past few years. With the deadly duo of Captain Jarome Iginla and the almost unstoppable Miikka Kirpusoff in net, the Flames are burning up the league.
The Calgary Flames weren't always the Calgary Flames. They started life as the Atlanta Flames out of Georgia, USA, but moved to Calgary in 1980. Hard to believe, but the Flames are the third professional hockey team to hit Calgary in the 20th century, with the first being in 1921 (The Calgary Tigers).
Arguably, the best part about living in the Flames' town isn't the hockey at all. Rather, it's The Red Mile. The Red Mile is a stretch of 17th Avenue South that starts from the Pengrowth Saddledome where the Flames play and runs up about 5 blocks or so where a number of bars and restaurants are located. 17th Ave is busy pretty much any time of the year, but during hockey season the bars are packed with fans watching the games. The streets really begin to fill up after the games when not only are the bar patrons spilling out onto the streets, but a second wave of revelers is just starting to arrive from the Saddledome. Since pretty much every Flames fan wears red to the games, the fan-packed street became known as “The Red Mile”.
The Flames are a diverse team. Out of the 24 players, only 13 are Canadian. Of the remainder, most are from outside North America altogether. Perhaps that accounts for the stature of the team. Even without skates, 21 members of the team are over 6 feet tall but the two Canadian forwards Daymond Langkow and Mark Smith are tied for shortest players at 5' 10”.
The Flames have been in Calgary long enough that they are part of the landscape. Many journalists and television personalities have had their careers launched and prolonged by the Flames. One of the more notable television personalities associated with the Flames was Ed Whalen. Whalen spent the last 20 years of his career being “the voice of the Calgary Flames”. Whalen died in 2001 and his colorful game announcing peppered with phrases like “ring-a-ding-dong dandy” are sorely missed by an entire generation of Flames fans.
Jarome Iginla is the team captain and has played for the Flames for ten years – his entire NHL career. In his first year in the NHL, Iginla lead all NHL rookies with 50 points. Iginla's name is bound to be added to the long list of illustrious Flames alumni such as Lanny McDonald, Joe Mullen, Grant Fuhr, and Al MacInnis.
After defeating the Montreal Canadiens and winning The Stanley cup in 1986, the Flames didn't come that close again until 2004. In that year, the Flames made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals but after stretching the series out to all seven games, The Tampa Bay Lightning managed to score and win the cup.
The Flames organization is vast and the marketing wheels never stop turning. Members of the Flames can be seen on weekends at shopping malls and fundraisers signing autographs and doing other things to help out fellow Calgarians. The Flames website (http://flames.nhl.com) is a one-stop shop for team information, schedules, and clothing. You can also purchase tickets to their games: Calgary Flames Tickets
The Flames are currently 6th in the Western Conference so perhaps we'll see another Stanley Cup run in a few months! |
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