I don't think Calgarians are "lucky" to have a team.
The population of the Calgary area is about 1.7 million people. There are no other sports teams within the four major sports. It's generally considered to be the 1st or 2nd richest city in Canada depending on the metric.
How the team was formed, and the difficulty of the 90s, are irrelevant.
Calgary as it is now can absolutely support an NHL team. If the Flames were to relocate, the city of Calgary would likely get another NHL team nearly instantaneously.
Not many fanbases would be able to withstand 30 years of mediocrity like Calgarians have. Yet here we are.
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