“The one thing that’s amazing to me, that still sticks out in my brain,” Rhett Warrener, 10 years after the fact, recalls. “It’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, everything you’ve ever dreamed of as a kid. And you can’t imagine that the adrenalin wouldn’t get you through. But I can remember Marty St. Louis is coming down on me and I’m skating backwards, and what pops into my head? ‘I’m tired.’ Game 7, Stanley Cup final, third period — with your emotions, your adrenalin, you shouldn’t be tired, right? But that’s how bagged we were as a team. We’d pushed it to the brink.
“I don’t think we had any more juice left in us. You had it all. All those games? All those injuries? It caught up to us at the end.”
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“I was mad … I lost my marbles,” says Warrener. “I threw my stick on the ice and it hit Roman Turek in the head … and I turned around (and went to the dressing room). I still feel bad because I didn’t shake hands, but I lost it. I went back in the (trainer’s) room and starting breaking stuff. I didn’t come out because I didn’t want to see the guys that way. And I didn’t want to be seen that way.
“It was a pretty bleak, terrible place to be, I tell you. I wanted to lock myself in that room. I wanted to lock myself in that room for about three years.”
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“I’m going to be honest with you — and people might look at it like, ‘Gelinas is a bit of a wimp’ — but I cried,” says Martin Gelinas. “I really cried. And I knew, at my age, that it was going to be maybe the last time. It was heartbreaking. It was a blur. I was so upset.”
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“I don’t anybody thought we were going to lose that game — just the way the whole run went,” says Chris Clark. “Not everything went our way, but we found ways. Obviously, Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff were superstars, but there wasn’t a lot of relying on single guys. The success came from a lot of guys filling different roles, scoring different goals when they had the chance, making big plays. So I don’t think anyone thought we were going to lose.
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“I don’t know that I ever did,” he replies. “For me, that was the third time I’d lost. That one hit home more. Remember that movie The Perfect Storm? They think there’s sunlight there for a little bit and they think they’re going to get out of that storm.
“But the guy says, ‘It’s not going to let us go.’ That’s how I felt. I’m not going to get to touch it. That’s three chances. That’s three opportunities.”
“For me personally, I don’t know that I ever played hockey as well — or even close — after that was over. It took something out of me.”
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“There’s not a peep for about an hour, until guys finally had enough drinks and started opening up,” says Shean Donovan.
“But the first hour? All you could hear were the stewardesses walking around. Such a quiet and weird and eerie feeling.”
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Last edited by Dion; 04-21-2014 at 11:32 PM.
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The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true. Go Flames Go!
Okay, the potential for that day was so frickin huge. What a bust.
Hard to believe it's been ten years. What a wild ride. I always look back at it fondly for how much fun it was to see the team play, and the community unite and rally behind them after years of misery.
I thought it was "it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"?
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The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true. Go Flames Go!
Wow, I think it just got really smoky in my apartment because both my eyes are watering. I can still remember how depressed the entire city seemed after Games 6 and 7 but looking back it was a great run and very exciting for the Flames to come so close.
My ex's birthday was also on Game 7. She didn't take it too well when I told her she had a conflicting birthday.
10 years later - Flames players comment on 2004 Cup run
