Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The club is the third major professional ice hockey team to represent the city of Calgary, following the Calgary Tigers (1921–1927) and Calgary Cowboys (1975–1977). The Flames are one of two NHL franchises in Alberta; the other is the Edmonton Oilers. The cities' proximity has led to a rivalry known as the "Battle of Alberta".
The team was founded in 1972 in Atlanta as the Atlanta Flames until relocating to Calgary in 1980. The Flames played their first three seasons in Calgary at the Stampede Corral before moving into their current home arena, the Scotiabank Saddledome (originally known as the Olympic Saddledome), in 1983. In 1985–86, the Flames became the first Calgary team since the 1923–24 Tigers to compete for the Stanley Cup. In 1988–89, the Flames won their first and only championship. The Flames' unexpected run to the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals gave rise to the Red Mile, and in 2011 the team hosted and won the second Heritage Classic outdoor game.
The Flames have won two Presidents' Trophies as the NHL's top regular season team, and have claimed seven division championships. Individually, Jarome Iginla is the franchise leader in games played, goals and points and is a two-time winner of the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the NHL's leading goal scorer. Miikka Kiprusoff has the most wins by a goaltender in a Calgary Flames uniform. Nine people associated with the Flames have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Off the ice, Calgary Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Flames, also own a Western Hockey League franchise (the Calgary Hitmen), a National Lacrosse League franchise (the Calgary Roughnecks) and a Canadian Football League franchise (the Calgary Stampeders). Through the Flames Foundation, the team has donated more than CA$32 million to charity throughout southern Alberta since the franchise arrived.
The Flames were the result of the NHL's first pre-emptive strike against the upstart World Hockey Association (WHA). In December 1971, the NHL hastily granted a team to Long Island—the New York Islanders —to keep the WHA's New York Raiders out of the brand new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Needing another team to balance the schedule, the NHL awarded a team to an Atlanta-based group that owned the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks, headed by prominent local real estate developer Tom Cousins. Cousins named the team the "Flames" after the fire resulting from the March to the Sea in the American Civil War by General William Tecumseh Sherman, in which Atlanta was nearly destroyed. They played home games in the Omni Coliseum in downtown Atlanta.
The Flames were relatively successful early on. Under head coaches Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, Fred Creighton and Al MacNeil, the Flames made the playoffs in six of eight seasons in Atlanta. In marked contrast, their expansion cousins, the Islanders, won only 31 games during their first two years in the league combined. However, this relative success did not carry over to the playoffs, as the Flames won only two post-season games during their time in Atlanta.
Despite the on-ice success, the Atlanta ownership was never on sound financial footing. Longtime general manager Cliff Fletcher said years later that Cousins' initial financial projections for an NHL team did not account for the WHA entering the picture. The Flames were also a poor draw, and never signed a major television contract
In 1980, Cousins was in considerable financial difficulty and was forced to sell the Flames to stave off bankruptcy. With few serious offers from local groups, he was very receptive to an offer from Canadian entrepreneur (and former Oilers owner) Nelson Skalbania. He was fronting a group of Calgary businessmen that included oil magnates Harley Hotchkiss, Ralph T. Scurfield, Norman Green, Doc and Byron Seaman, and former Calgary Stampeders great Norman Kwong. A last-ditch effort to keep the team in Atlanta fell short, and Cousins sold the team to Skalbania for US$16 million, a record sale price for an NHL team at the time.[9] On May 21, 1980, Skalbania announced that the team would move to Calgary.[10] He chose to retain the Flames name, feeling it would be a good fit for an oil town like Calgary, while the flaming "A" logo was replaced by a flaming "C". Skalbania sold his interest in 1981, and the Flames have been locally owned since
Reference
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