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!
The hilight is Clint Malarchuk's face as he storms out of the dressing room at around the :22 mark of the hallway video. That guy was ready to take on the entire stadium.
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Damn I miss that iteration of the Flames. For how little success they had, they disproportionately have a place in my heart.
We had season tickets back then, and I enjoyed almost all the games I went to.
It was so different than what you see from so many rebuilding teams bottoming out these days (San Jose and Chicago, for example). The flames established themselves as the hardest working team in the league. Despite losing games, they were rarely an easy out in those games. They finished in the bottom four of the league that year but it did not feel painful to watch at all - unlike San Jose and Chicago when bottoming out over the last two seasons.
Last edited by stemit14; 01-18-2024 at 12:08 PM.
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I was there! It my first time in Rogers Arena, I looked at my buddy and said there's going to be a scrap just seeing Big Ern to start the game. Little did I know it was going to be a line brawl.
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I don't care if if he was an a-hole behind the scenes, or if we only made it to the playoffs once... from an entertainment perspective, the Hartley years were perhaps the most enjoyable in all my years as a Flames fan outside of 2004.
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Gvitaly posted an interview with McGrattan not too long ago somewhere where he spoke about this brawl. Torts was an idiot that day for choosing to start his 4th line. McGrattan's line was being rewarded for their strong play, and the other lines were being embarrassed for their poor play in the previous couple of games. McGrattan stated that there was no way that he or anyone else would have just jumped the Sedins, and even asked when that has ever happened in the last 20 years out of the blue.
Torts was guilty of overthinking it. McGrattan did say: "Let's line brawl tonight", but he did not for a second think it was going to happen right at the start of the game, until he saw who Torts was starting.
The brawl was also the mark that launched these two teams in different trajectories - Flames shot up to the point that at the end of that season, Aaron Ward (as well as Cali_Flames_Fan) predicted that the Flames would make the playoffs the following season - and they were right. Vancouver went into a tailspin that season, Torts was fired, and they recovered somewhat, making the playoffs the following season (and being defeated by Calgary).
Fun times. The methods behind the scenes may indeed have been madness, but boy was that an easy team to cheer for, and so damn fun to watch.
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Sestito's comment about being in the opening faceoff was hilarious as well. "Torts said that they are starting those idiots, so we are going to match that".
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 01-18-2024 at 01:09 PM.
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Still drives me crazy how much of a spot-picker Bieksa is.
Acting all tough by taking the faceoff, then backs away immediately, and takes Smid instead. Still loses that fight...
Edit: And by going from memory, the Canucks had a few games before that which were out of reach and they started fisticuffs, so they ain't exactly coming with clean hands.
Still drives me crazy how much of a spot-picker Bieksa is.
Acting all tough by taking the faceoff, then backs away immediately, and takes Smid instead. Still loses that fight...
Edit: And by going from memory, the Canucks had a few games before that which were out of reach and they started fisticuffs, so they ain't exactly coming with clean hands.
And his justification was to prevent Westgarth from fighting their rookie. Except by not fighting Westgarth himself, he wound up fighting the rookie anyways...
Saw 16 and the jerseys, and was trying to figure out what year this was. I was like... was this 04? That doesn't look like Donovan though... then I saw him skating to the box and was like... he looks so familiar... then I saw Gilbert and was like... Berube!
Then it allll came back and I was excited to see Iggy tar and feather Lambert all over again!
Happy 10th anniversary to one of the best brawls ever!
