The Visitors' Book, October: Detroit's Bench Remembers the Saddledome

Saddledome — Every team in the league makes its last regular-season trip to the Saddledome this season, and most of them are saying something on the way out. This is where we keep track of what the visitors remember, once a month, until Vancouver closes the regular season on April 10. The building’s own story is the Last Yee-Haw; this is what the guests took home.

October brought eight home games and seven clubs, and four of them have now been here for the last time: Carolina, Detroit, Toronto and Seattle. The Flames went 5-3 and won the last five. Not every visitor talked about the building. These are the ones who did.

Detroit Red Wings, Oct. 24

The Red Wings came in as the first Original Six club to make its final regular-season visit, by their own website’s count, and they brought two former Flames on the coaching staff. Alex Tanguay played five seasons in Calgary across two stints; Trent Yawney played five on the blue line, from 1991-92 to 1995-96. Both are Todd McLellan’s assistants now.

Detroit’s broadcaster, Detroit SportsNet, sent rink-side reporter Daniella Bruce to the building’s history and to the two of them on the morning ice. Yawney went straight to 1988. “Olympics, in ‘88, that’s primarily why the building was built, was to host the Olympics,” he said. “I mean, our daughter was born here, so there’s a lot of good memories, not just necessarily involving the Saddledome, but the city of Calgary.”

Tanguay’s memory was the flame. “Like, they’ve had this flame coming out when you score a goal or when you come on the ice,” he said. “If you feel really warm on the bench, you feel it in the stands. It’s a good building, it’s a good city to play in. The fans are passionate, they’re loyal.”

Asked about the charm of the old buildings, Yawney said, “This is one of the last remaining old buildings in the league,” and went to the Battle of Alberta, from the years when “Edmonton, Calgary, the teams were very evenly matched, and the city would be electric knowing that, you know, the Oilers were in town … and vice versa in Edmonton, because I spent some time there.”

Tanguay was in Calgary for Jarome Iginla’s 50-goal season in 2007-08. “Played with good players. Jarome Iginla scoring 50 goals here,” he said. What stayed with him was the room: in a market like Calgary, he said, the team got close “because there’s nowhere to hide. You go somewhere in the city and you’re, you’re recognized real fast.”

The best story of the trip was Yawney’s. Bruce asked whether he had ever seen a Stampede or a rodeo event. “Oh yeah, I got some stories,” he said. “They put me on a horse, and I’m not a big horse guy, in the parade. And this horse knew I didn’t like being on horses, so he was a little ornery throughout the whole thing. And the last part of the parade, he decided to take off, and I had never ridden a horse before, so I was hanging on for dear life.”

“Trent Yawney must have done a great job scrubbing the internet,” Bruce said, because DSN looked for a picture of him on that horse and could not find one. We looked too, through the Calgary Herald for every parade of his Flames years, and the paper never named him. It does record, in 1995, a Calgary Flames wagon with riders on horseback. Yawney was a Flame that summer.

Detroit SportsNet: "The 44th and final season at the Saddledome. @daniellabruce_ has all the history!" (video, Oct. 24, 2026)

McLellan put his own history in the Red Wings’ game-day preview, by team reporter Jonathan Mills: “I’ve been lucky enough to play in this building, coach junior in this building, coach pro in this building, also concerts, the Stampede, the whole thing.” And Ben Chiarot, who is from Hamilton, Ont., explained what the building meant to a kid watching from the other end of the country: “I think, for the guys my age that grew up watching Hockey Night in Canada and you catch the late game, you stay up late enough watching Jarome Iginla, Robyn Regehr… a lot of good memories watching them and then getting to play here. It’s always been a special rink for me. Sad to see it go.”

Detroit’s broadcasters brought their own Calgary. Ken Kal, the Red Wings’ radio voice, told Detroit SportsNet the Saddledome is one of his all-time favourite buildings: “you just love the building because it looks like a saddle from the outside.” His game is the Russian Five’s. Detroit traded for Igor Larionov 31 years ago that night, he said, and the next time the Wings came to Calgary, Scotty Bowman put all five Russians on the ice together. “It was keep away out on the ice,” Kal said, “and I’ve always said they should have thrown another puck on the ice so that Calgary could play in that game too.” The game sheet backs him up: Detroit won 3-0 on Oct. 27, 1995, and Calgary had eight shots. Kal remembered Sergei Fedorov scoring; the sheet has Vyacheslav Kozlov and Larionov, both set up by Fedorov.

Trevor Thompson of Detroit SportsNet remembered the playoffs, and “the sea of red.” In 2004 he was in the building when Martin Gelinas put Detroit out in overtime of Game 6, and what stayed with him was the visitors’ dressing room afterward. Brendan Shanahan “sat at his stall for real time, 20 minutes, before he took his jersey off. Tears in his eyes, taking it all in.” Every time he comes back to that room, Thompson said, he can still see him there. Three years later it went the other way: Johan Franzen beat Miikka Kiprusoff in double overtime of Game 6 in 2007, and Calgary was out.

Detroit SportsNet: "Some more Saddledome memories from @KenKalDRW and @iamtrevort!" (video, Oct. 24, 2026)

Calgary won the game 4-1, on 2004 night, and Chiarot spent the last few minutes of it in the penalty box after fighting Jake Middleton.

Toronto Maple Leafs, Oct. 26

The Leafs made their last regular-season trip on a Monday, and the man in their room with the oldest claim on the building was William Nylander. He was born in Calgary in May 1996, while his father, Michael, was playing for the Flames. “I was here when I was born watching my dad play,” he told David Alter of The Hockey News the day before the game. To Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun he said, “This place has some character, it’s fun coming into older buildings.” He wasn’t sorry about the move, either. “I think the new one will be really nice,” he told Alter, “but it’ll be a fun, exciting last game.”

Jim Hiller, Toronto’s coach, played his first NHL game here, for the Los Angeles Kings on Oct. 6, 1992, when the Saddledome was nine years old. “It was roughly a new building back then,” he said. “Here and Joe Louis Arena,” he told the Sun, “were two of the nicest rinks in the NHL.”

Darren Raddysh had less to go on. Calgary was one trip a year for him in Tampa Bay. “We only came out here once a year but the history of this building is pretty cool,” he said, and he had seen what comes next on the way in: “Just driving by the new rink today, it’ll be pretty cool once that’s open.”

The Flames won 5-2.

Minnesota Wild, Oct. 22

Blake Coleman came back in a Wild sweater, three months after the Flames traded him, with Olli Maatta, for Jake Middleton and three draft picks. He had played five seasons here. His first worry was the welcome. “I hope I don’t get booed,” he told Daniel Austin of the Calgary Herald, with a smile. Nobody booed. In a first-period stoppage the Flames played a tribute video on the scoreboard, and the building stood for him.

Calgary had been home longer than anywhere else he played. “My girls grew up here, it’s the longest I’ve spent in any city in the NHL,” he said. When he and his wife picked the Flames in 2021, he told Joe Smith of The Athletic, everyone described Calgary to them as the “Texas of Canada.” Coleman is from Plano. “That was a pretty big selling point for us,” he said. “And it was. It felt like home.”

The new building came into his leaving, too. Coleman told The Athletic that “with the new rink coming,” his choice was to sign an extension and be “part of the rink opening, or maybe it was time to move on and have a chance to win.” He moved on. “It feels like you never left when you’re back here,” he told Jess Myers of the Pioneer Press.

Calgary won 2-1. Two nights later, Middleton was the one who fought Ben Chiarot.

Seattle Kraken, Oct. 1 and Oct. 30

Seattle opened the building’s last season and spoiled the party, 6-1. The best line about the Saddledome from that trip came from the press box. Darren Brown of Sound of Hockey, an independent Kraken site, was making his first visit. “I loved the Saddledome,” he wrote. “It was like a journey back in time to when the only ‘amenity’ an arena offered was the game itself.” The press box was wild, he said, and the famous catwalk “lived up to its billing and seemed to be constructed of toothpicks and plywood.” His sign-off: “It was my first and likely last visit to the Saddledome, and now I’m bummed they’re tearing it down.”

The Kraken came back for the last time on Oct. 30. The club’s game-day post called it “one last rodeo at the ‘Dome.” Patrick Brown, who directs the Kraken’s TV broadcasts, took a 360 camera up to that same catwalk before the game and posted the walk: “One final walk across the Saddledome catwalk! Enjoy the terror…”

Patrick Brown: "One final walk across the Saddledome catwalk! Enjoy the terror..." (video, Oct. 30, 2026)

The Flames returned the favour from the opener, 6-2, with Matt Coronato in on four of the goals.

Next month’s visitors

Anaheim makes its last visit on Nov. 6, with A.J. Greer, who played a season here. Philadelphia comes on Nov. 8, the Flyers’ only trip this season, with Dan Vladar, a Flame for four seasons. The Rangers’ only visit is Nov. 11. Minnesota is back for the last time on Nov. 19, Coleman again, with Tyler Pitlick and Olli Maatta, both briefly Flames. Chicago brings Andrew Mangiapane, seven seasons a Flame, on Nov. 21.