The Visitors' Book, October: Detroit's Bench Remembers the Saddledome
The Saddledome's last season, from the other bench. Calgary-born William Nylander, Blake Coleman's ovation and two ex-Flames on Detroit's staff, on what the building meant.
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The Saddledome's last season, from the other bench. Calgary-born William Nylander, Blake Coleman's ovation and two ex-Flames on Detroit's staff, on what the building meant.
Four Calgary first-round picks play each other in Texas on Halloween. A Flames fan's guide to North Dakota vs Michigan State: who they are, why it matters, how to watch.
"Nothing matters. Nobody cares. We're all going to die." Four starts, 127 saves, a pet rabbit named Tito and the goalie theory that made it all the way to the world's largest podcaster, Joe Rogan.
Nelson Skalbania bought the Flames without, by his own count, a dollar of his own in the deal, then bet $2,000 on their first game against Edmonton and lost it. The first Battle of Alberta, October 22, 1980.
Calgary handed green hard hats to the first 2,004 fans, put the 2004 jerseys back on, let Chris Sutter drop the puck, and beat the team the '04 Flames knocked out in round two.
Anthony Dillett of the Dakota Student on what the C looks like at North Dakota now that Cole Reschny wears it in games that count.
In 1994, Bob Probert needed a head butt to stop a 21-year-old rookie. It took him 16 years and a memoir to name who had the hardest punch.
On October 15, 1983 the Saddledome opened, months late and $16.5 million over, with a name a maintenance worker and his son came up with in front of a hockey game. The first page of The Saddledome's Last Yee-Haw.
Ryan Huska is in the NHL's hot-seat conversation after the worst start in franchise history, and Elliotte Friedman says Calgary is the team everyone's watching. We separate the firing talk from the numbers, and ask whether a rebuild coach is running out of time.
Brian Williams drives 190 miles round trip for North Dakota hockey, and he has the ink to prove it. From "Unleash the Wiebe" to watching Reschny and Carels on opening night, this is the ultimate view from the Ralph.
Four days after the Flames waived him, Connor Zary played his first AHL game since 2023-24, scored off a Dryden Hunt pass and was named first star.
Dustin Wolf's seven-year, $52.5 million deal starts this season. Last season is why the first month matters, and why it isn't all on him.
Philadelphia moved a centre it had stopped waiting on. Calgary played him down the middle, watched him win faceoffs, and then signed him themselves.
On the night the Flames fell to 0-2 in Vancouver, their farm team finished a weekend sweep at the Saddledome, and a rookie defenceman did a bit of everything.
The Flames brought a "rat" into the province on purpose, then scratched Brennan Othmann for the Saddledome's farewell opener, a 6-1 loss to Seattle.
Flames prospects Carson Carels and Cole Reschny at North Dakota media day: draft night on the farm, captain at 19, and coach Dane Jackson on both.
UND holds its media day today, and the season it opens has a date already circled: North Dakota against Michigan State in Texas on Oct. 31, with four Calgary first-round picks on the ice.
A day after the Flames sent him back to junior, Chase Harrington was named the Spokane Chiefs' 39th captain. Then he scored, set up the winner and dropped the gloves: the first Gordie Howe hat trick of his WHL career.
In August the side of Scotia Place that Calgary watches from was still a green box. Five weeks later it is white panel and gold, and the Saddledome spent Saturday night hosting a farewell tour of its own.
The Flames put their second-round pick in the NHL group at training camp, and two goalies noticed his shot. Here's the notebook on Chase Harrington, from the Spokane Chiefs to Mikael Backlund's wing and back.
The Flames dressed 18 skaters against Seattle on Sunday and almost none of them were the Flames. That was the plan. Here is what the night said about each of them, sorted by what it means for the cut.
Sick of being a hero in Canada, the man who scored the goal of the century took a two-way deal with the Atlanta Flames on a trainer's salary and with a two-hour commute, just to keep his kids in an Alabama high school.
North Dakota's players voted a sophomore their captain on Wednesday. Cole Reschny, the Flames' 2025 first-rounder, is the first underclassman to wear the C at UND since Dave Hakstol in 1990-91, and the youngest ever.
Nine years ago this week, Mayor Nenshi tried to make a deal: three doors to a new arena, each with $185 million behind it, supposedly. Ken King peeked behind all three, called every one a Zonk the team and its fans would end up paying for, and walked. The fight that built Scotia Place starts here.
Atlanta sold Rick Bowness for cold hard cash. Eight years later he is in a headset on the Winnipeg bench in Calgary, throwing a right hand at a Flame, and you can decide for yourself which bill he was settling.
The Flyers moved a contract their previous general manager signed. Calgary absorbed it and got a 20-goal penalty killer who never missed a night.
Twenty-seven years ago today, Calgary signed up the goaltender who had spent a decade beating them. He arrived as the number one, had to waive a no-trade clause to get here, and gave the Flames one great night out of a hard year.
His dad is Ron Hextall's cousin, and he put up only 28 penalty minutes in his draft year. In that family, that makes him the black sheep. Here's the notebook on Calgary's newest centre.
Two years on, Calgary has not issued sweater 13 to anybody since he left, and the club has never said why. A short accounting of how this city said goodbye.
Twenty-nine years ago today, Calgary traded Gary Roberts to Carolina. What almost nobody remembers is that the deal came with a condition, and the man at the centre of it had two days to prove a room full of doctors wrong.
We walked the block again this afternoon. The west and north faces of Scotia Place are being clad in metal panel, the east face is still bare green wrap, and the only side Calgary watches from is the side that hasn't changed.
Forty years after Game 4 at the Montreal Forum, the truth about Claude Lemieux and Jim Peplinski is stranger than the legend, and a good deal funnier.
Gaudreau, Tkachuk, Lindholm, Markstrom: every other player from Calgary's 2022 playoff team is gone. Backlund is still here, and his new contract sets up a run at Jarome Iginla's franchise games-played record.
Thirteen years after he walked from Toronto to Parliament Hill, Fleury spent Sunday morning walking downtown Calgary with the Breaking Free Foundation.
The voice of the Flames for 33 seasons died Thursday at 79. He called the only Stanley Cup this city has ever won, from a radio booth in the Montreal Forum, and no archive in the country kept a copy of it.
Hockey Canada suspended five players from the 2018 world junior team on Wednesday, including a former Flame. The suspension covers Hockey Canada programs and nothing else, and the organization did not say why the penalties differ.
Olivia W. is at CN Centre for every home game she can get to. She wrote Carson Carels a farewell, so we asked her about the warm-up routine she knows by heart, the award he kept on his wall, and the jersey she designed.
The record says Paul Baxter fought Guy Carbonneau in the 1986 Cup Final, and that he won a ring on the Flames bench in 1989. He did neither. The story of a man the books keep putting in rooms he was standing next to.
Calgary has 16 players signed for 2027-28, the season Scotia Place opens, including both goaltenders. Eight Flames prospects just wrapped the World Junior Summer Showcase. Four project into the NHL lineup on opening night and four into the Wranglers, and that combined roster is the clearest look anyone has at the next Flames team.
Wyttenbach scored twice more as the United States closed the showcase with a 7-2 win over Canada, finishing with eight points in four games. Cole Reschny had the best per-game rate of any Calgary prospect in Windsor.
Six years ago this weekend, the Flames played a playoff game in an empty NHL arena inside the COVID bubble. A Tkachuk hit ended Mark Scheifele's night and started a public war of words with Jets coach Paul Maurice. The scrapbook page worth keeping is what the record actually shows.
A day after his box score showed three second-period assists, Cole Reschny tells TSN how Canada erased a 3-0 deficit against Finland: hits, pucks deep, and wearing the other team down. He also opens up about wearing the C for the first time.
Reschny, back in the lineup after Wednesday's scratch, set up all three of Canada's second-period goals in a 5-3 comeback win over Finland, then scored the shootout winner in a bonus post-game session. Sweden rallied from 2-0 down to beat the U.S. 5-2 in the early game.
We walked the block in late July. Steel now wraps the whole bowl at Scotia Place, the Saddledome opens its farewell season October 1, and the same contractor is behind both buildings.
Stockselius broke a third-period tie and added an empty-netter as Sweden beat Canada 5-3 Wednesday. Ethan Wyttenbach's point streak continued in a 3-2 loss to Finland, six points through three games.
Calgary's sixth-overall pick sat in a meeting room in Windsor, heard what Canada wants to be this year, and couldn't keep his legs still. Bronze wasn't good enough, and the tournament comes to Alberta on Boxing Day.
A fifth-round pick led the entire NCAA in scoring as a freshman, then showed up at the World Junior Summer Showcase and kept going. Here's the notebook on Calgary's most surprising prospect.
Wyttenbach followed a three-assist opener with two goals Monday, five points through two games. USA White beat Sweden 6-4 in the late game, with Jack Hextall picking up a power-play assist.
Five of the Flames' eight prospects in Windsor took the ice Sunday as the World Junior Summer Showcase opened. Carson Carels and two more are still to come this week.
Two Atlanta Flames-era heavyweights spent a season hunting each other. The record says three clashes but legend says eight. Decades later, they sat down together and had a few beers about it.
The Chiefs unveiled a $3 billion stadium with a swooping saddle-shaped roof. Calgary's own account had one line for it, in the Saddledome's farewell season.
Calgary handed the Devils two first-round picks and a prospect, then handed Šimon Nemec a $36.25 million cheque. The 22-year-old found out while standing over a stove in Slovakia.
Hockey Alberta just put the undrafted grinder from the 1989 Cup line into its Hall of Fame, the same night as Paul Coffey. The page worth keeping starts with the contract that made the Flames pay for his degree.
The world changed for Carson Carels this summer, except the one thing that made his nickname a demolition charge. Up in Calgary, that number is suddenly empty.
New York just put Calgary's president of hockey ops in the state Hall of Fame. The scrapbook page starts with the night the lowest-scoring All-Star won a fire-engine red Camaro, got a ticket, and traded up. Forty-odd years later, he's still hunting the prize that got away.
He was a middleweight in a league of giants, so Calgary's sheriff invented a fight trick nobody could solve. They called it black magic. Here's the move, and the one man it never worked on.
Long Island kid, Harvard sniper, $45.5 million Flame. Eight things worth knowing about Matt Coronato, including the plus-minus that lied about his whole season.
The Flames spent the sixth pick in the 2026 draft on a farm kid from Manitoba who might just be a top-pair defenceman. Here's the scouting notebook on him.
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