Quote:
Originally Posted by Yamer
I hope you're right, but Kipper's greatest accomplishments didn't bring the team a championship like Vernon, and he didn't have the longevity and/or profile of Iginla and McDonald.
Popular, memorable, one of the most skilled at his position. Just seems like a classic case for FAF.
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I think you nailed it. TBH, it won't be popular opinion around here, but Kipper didn't play long enough to warrant a jersey retirement, or as you said have enough profile, and I hope they don't retire his jersey.
I think a jersey retirement should be a very rare occurrence, especially if a number of championships don't follow around a team. I'll get it if the Pens for example have 2 or 3 jersey's to retire once this generations of Penguins retires.........they accomplished a lot and had some longevity to their best players. An organization like the Flames shouldn't be retiring the Jersey's of the best 2 or 3 guys (I've even heard cases be made for Regehr on here) of a version of the team that didn't win a cup and had no sustained playoff success to boot.
Iginla was one of the best players in the league for a sustained period of time, was the best Flame to ever play the game to date, and he was the face of the franchise for over a decade. He's a special case despite the lack of overall team success.
I know the counter for many will be that they feel Kipper is the best goalie this Franchise has ever seen, and will point to Vernon as the reason Kipper should be up there too. I think it's debatable who the best Flames goalie was of all time between the two (if you take time they played into account), but the biggest difference between Vernon and Kipper is the fact one did help win the cup for the franchise, and the length of time Vernon was an elite goalie in the league compared to Kipper. That for me is why Vernon and not Kipper, although I do think retiring Vernon's jersey was still borderline (although I did enjoy it)!