Calgary Flames

Calgary Flames

The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The team was founded in 1972 in Atlanta as the Atlanta Flames, and relocated to Calgary in 1980. The club is the third major professional ice Hockey team to represent the city, following the Calgary Tigers and CalgaryCowboys. The Flames have won two Presidents’ Trophies as the NHL’s top regular season team, and have claimed seven division championships.

About Calgary Flames in brief

Summary Calgary FlamesThe Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The team was founded in 1972 in Atlanta as the Atlanta Flames, and relocated to Calgary in 1980. 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. Miikka Kiprusoff has the most wins by a goaltender in a Calgary Flames uniform. Eleven 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, a National Lacrosse League franchise and a Canadian Football League franchise. The Calgary Tigers and Calgary Cowboys were the first two NHL franchises in Alberta; the other is the Edmonton Oilers. In 1985–86, the Flames became the first Calgary team since the 1923–24 Tigers to compete for the Stanley Cup. The cities’ proximity has led to a rivalry known as the \”Battle of Alberta\”. 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. Unlike the WHA’s Calgary Cowboys, who folded three years earlier, the Calgary Flames were immediately embraced by the city of Calgary. They play their home games at the Scotiabank Saddledome, which opened in 1983. The club is the third major professional ice Hockey team to represent the city, following the Calgary Tigers and CalgaryCowboys.

The Flames are one of two NHL teams in Alberta, the other being the Calgary Oilers. The Edmonton Oilers are a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference and play in the Edmonton Oilers’ home arena, the Edmonton Oil City Capacity. The Flames are the only NHL team to have played in all three major Canadian professional leagues: the NHL, the WHL and the Canadian Football League. The franchise is owned by 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. The NHL awarded a team to the Atlanta-based group that owned the National Basketball Association’s Atlanta Hawks, headed by prominent local real estate developer Tom Cousins, after 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. Despite the on-ice success, the Atlanta ownership was never on sound financial footing. In 1980, Cousins was forced to sell the team to Canadian entrepreneur Nelson Skalbania for a record price for an NHL team at the time. He chose to retain the Flames name, feeling it would be a good fit for an oil town like Calgary, while replacing it with a flaming logo.