Worst Moment As A Flames Fan

[Cali Panthers Fan]

The 1997-98 Season.

We finished with our lowest point total ever since moving to Calgary, a measly 67 points. We were just 3 points ahead of dead last in the West and 26th in the NHL. The only teams below us were recent expansion teams (Anaheim, Florida, and Tampa Bay) and the Vancouver Canucks (ha ha).

The team consisted of Theo Fleury and his 78 points...and then it dropped drastically.
Next highest was Cory Stillman, with 49 points, and then Andrew Cassels and Marty McInnis with 44 points.

Dave Gagner and Robert Reichel both left the previous off-season. German Titov's game started to really fall off the map. We brought back Michael Nylander because of his previous success, only to realize he couldn't add offense anymore.

The following players played more than 10 games for us that season: Cale Hulse (79) *shudder*, Chris Dingman (70), Edward Ward (64), Sandy McCarthy (52), Jim Dowd (48), Joel Bouchard (44), Jamie Allison (43), Aaron Gavey (26), Kevin Dahl (19), Todd Hlushko (13), Erik Andersson (12), Chris O'Sullivan (12), and Rocky friggin' Thompson (12).

Our goalies were a tandem of Rick Tabaracci and Dwayne Roloson before he was good. Both had save percentages well below .900.

That was a brutal team with little to no talent. It was clear that the Flames were heading into a rebuild with nothing to rebuild with. Very sparse talent in the system, an inability to compete financially with the rest of the NHL for free agents, and a general sense of doom and gloom for the future. Management was abysmal, coaching was not much better (I think we went through 5 coaches in this period), and fans stopped coming to the games.

It would be the 2nd season in a row the Flames missed the playoffs, just one of 7 seasons in a row of playoff futility.

This, my dear friends, was the beginning of the "Young Guns" era. I hoped never to have to think about it again.

[devo22]

Apart from the Finals 04:

Not really a moment, but that bizarre week in January/February 2010 was a really tough pill to swallow. I had always admired Darryl Sutter for his coaching and GMing for the Flames, so seeing him panic like that and "lose his marbles" sucked. I remember saying to myself "this can't be it, there has to be something else brewing too because this alone doesn't make sense" all the time because the Phaneuf and Jokinen deals were just bat-#### crazy. Pretty much lost all the faith I had in the decision-making group at the time.

[danimal]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Slightly off topic. Worst sports moment. Period.

Spoiler!

13th man. That was by far the worst sports related day of my life. In fact it was quite a bit worse than a whole bunch of non-sports related terrible events/days of my life.

Bought a ticket at the last minute, figured I'd be crazy to not attend the GC of my most cherished of all sports teams in my home city. And I lived about a 15 min drive from McMahon, just up crowchild. Went down, got a ticket for $100 in section N or M.

What a glorious 55 minutes of football that was. Give or take that amount of time. Right up until Durant threw that pick.

The section I was sitting was THE endzone it happened in. It all happened right in front of me. I swear I was the only person in my section to see the flag instantly. I didn't cheer for a single second. But the whole rest of the people around me went nuts and started jumping up and down, hugging. These two young ladies, about my age, in front of me were hugging and crying.

I just stood there pointing muttering to myself how there was a flag. And I knew it was against the Riders (though I figured it was procedure or offside, not too many men).

I can still hear that ###### randorf (i think) announce the MVP and hand over the trophy in my mind. And the associated image is of the intersection around 24th ave because I had left the stadium well before then. In fact my seat was on an aisle that allowed me to walk right out of the stadium as soon as the second kick split the uprights.

This is me right now by the way:

Spoiler!

Well I was gonna add in my original post that the 94 Bure goal was my worst sports fan moment until the 13th man in 2009, but I didn't want to face any Roughrider related backlash 😆. I'm a born and raised Calgarian, lived there until 2093, family still lives there, but my wife is from Saskatchewan and my kids were all born out here, so I caught the green fever despite my best attempts to resist it. That moment was soul sucking on a whole other level

[Kjesse]

For the 2004 playoff run, a friend and I sat in the first row in the balcony right behind the Tampa goalie when the "it was in" during game 6 happened. There was no issue at the time in that neither us nor apparently anyone in the lower bowl thought the puck was in. The play just continued. Driving home that night we heard about the issue on the radio.

My biggest disappointment is how lethargic the Flames looked in the game 7 to follow. I know they overplayed their talent (but not their effort) and had already achieved the impossible, but the way the game was played out it seemed like the Flames were simply out of gas. I'm still really proud of their season but the final game was disappointing.

[Resolute 14]

Standing in the St. Pete Times Forum as the 2004 run ended. All the whirlwind of emotions from pretty much the entire season - Starting slow, acquiring Kipper, getting hot. Kipper going down with injury. Somehow surviving. Qualifying for the playoffs, and then the entire insane run. Then - and that game 7 was some truly terrible hockey by both teams; they were just spent - standing there as 21,000 Tampa fans celebrated around us. You could see the 2000 or so red-clad Flames fans dotted around the arena still as statues, all of us in disbelief.

The Tampa fans were great though. So many people who had nothing but compliments for the Flames and us as fans as we left the arena after that.

[danimal]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

The 1997-98 Season.

We finished with our lowest point total ever since moving to Calgary, a measly 67 points. We were just 3 points ahead of dead last in the West and 26th in the NHL. The only teams below us were recent expansion teams (Anaheim, Florida, and Tampa Bay) and the Vancouver Canucks (ha ha).

The team consisted of Theo Fleury and his 78 points...and then it dropped drastically.
Next highest was Cory Stillman, with 49 points, and then Andrew Cassels and Marty McInnis with 44 points.

Dave Gagner and Robert Reichel both left the previous off-season. German Titov's game started to really fall off the map. We brought back Michael Nylander because of his previous success, only to realize he couldn't add offense anymore.

The following players played more than 10 games for us that season: Cale Hulse (79) *shudder*, Chris Dingman (70), Edward Ward (64), Sandy McCarthy (52), Jim Dowd (48), Joel Bouchard (44), Jamie Allison (43), Aaron Gavey (26), Kevin Dahl (19), Todd Hlushko (13), Erik Andersson (12), Chris O'Sullivan (12), and Rocky friggin' Thompson (12).

Our goalies were a tandem of Rick Tabaracci and Dwayne Roloson before he was good. Both had save percentages well below .900.

That was a brutal team with little to no talent. It was clear that the Flames were heading into a rebuild with nothing to rebuild with. Very sparse talent in the system, an inability to compete financially with the rest of the NHL for free agents, and a general sense of doom and gloom for the future. Management was abysmal, coaching was not much better (I think we went through 5 coaches in this period), and fans stopped coming to the games.

It would be the 2nd season in a row the Flames missed the playoffs, just one of 7 seasons in a row of playoff futility.

This, my dear friends, was the beginning of the "Young Guns" era. I hoped never to have to think about it again.

Wow! Some all star names there. Titov the former tank driver in the Russian army. Hlushko. Ed Ward seemed to hang around forever. Allison and Dahl had 2 separate tours of duty with the Flames. Always liked McCarthy but he forgot his role.

Wasn't that the year Sasha Lakovic jumped into the crowd in Edmonton after the fan dumped beer on Guy Lapointe's head?

[tvp2003]

1990 Playoffs - Floater over Vernon in 2OT, lose series to LA
1991 Playoffs - Ricochet shot past Vernon in OT (Tikkanen!), lose series to EDM

For a team that was arguably good enough to win the Cup in both years, those two losses (back-to-back) were soul-crushing.

[FlamingHomer]

As soon as Wideman smoked that linesman from behind I knew the Flames would be in for a lifetime of calls going against them.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

13th man.
The section I was sitting was THE endzone it happened in. It all happened right in front of me. I swear I was the only person in my section to see the flag instantly.

There were actually 2 flags, I have no idea how everyone missed them.

It'd be interesting for someone to get a poll of every sports franchise as to what their absolute most heartbreaking moment was, and then compare them. You'd have Buckner, Bartman, Kerry Fraser for the Leafs... it'd be an amazing showdown of utter depression.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by direwolf

Game 7 against the Ducks in 2006. To drop a turd like that on home ice in the most important game of the season was unforgivable. Don't think I'll ever get over that one. They didn't even show up.

My first full year as a season ticket holder. What a bitter disappointment.

[Hockey_Ninja]

A lot of people will say Gelinas phantom goal but losing game 7 was a bigger kick in the balls for me

[Hot_Flatus]

I have a hard time associating the 2003/2004 run with the worst moment ever. Even the losing was a good memory in many ways after so much success that year. I would associate the last two years of the Iginla era as the most revolting era of Flames hockey. The young guns are up there but at least we weren't fooled as fans into thinking they were something they were not.

Watching a checked out Iginla and his supporting cast play uninspired hockey with the illusion that they would somehow turn it on and make a run was enough to make me stop watching games for prolonged periods of time. Going to games was even worse with hordes of complacent fans, empty seats, booing.

I still cringe when I think about the Iginla trademark move of that era where he would cross the blueline and fire a deflected puck into the netting 3-4 times a game. No fan deserves that kind of shabby product.

[danimal]

It'd be interesting for someone to get a poll of every sports franchise as to what their absolute most heartbreaking moment was, and then compare them. You'd have Buckner, Bartman, Kerry Fraser for the Leafs... it'd be an amazing showdown of utter depression.[/QUOTE]

That would be fascinating for sure but the Riders have so many bad moments in their history that the 13th man is only in contention for top spot.

What a fascinating franchise

[puckedoff]

Nm beaten by a mile

[pacde]

I think it was 93, game 6 in LA
Hrudy in net ... tie game
Puck slides through Hrudy across the line, clear as day
no goal according to refs, LA wins game and closes out the series

I began to doubt the integrity of the game
later LA beats Toronto in one of the most unbelievable shows of one sided calls I have ever witnessed and I knew....

The NHL had to get Gretzky a cup in LA and were bending all believability to do so... glad it failed but since then I've known there is a bigger game than the game I was watching.

[Erick Estrada]

April 16, 1991. The Flames with a 46-26-8 record blew a big lead in game seven against a mediocre 37-37-6 Oilers team to lose the series. To me that was when the organization really started to become massive chokers as that was a team that should have got to the Stanley Cup finals. After that it was all downhill for the organization as the first round chokes continues to accumulate.

[flamesrule14]

Games 6-7 of 2004 easily. Game 6 sucked, but I was still in pretty high spirits thinking they'd win game 7. Game 7 was just the worst. So sad watching that game and just seeing they had nothing left in the tank.

The day Theo was traded ranks up there too. I was just a young boy grade 6? I think. Either way didn't understand the trade from a hockey or financial position. Was just mad and sad my hero and favourite player was gone.

[Huntingwhale]

-Losing games 6&7 om '04. Game 7 I didn't really feel we had a chance. The team just looked gassed. But game 6 I honestly thought I was going to experience a once in a lifetime event with a home ice Stanley cup win. Then to lose to quickly in OT...ugh...

-Game 7 vs the Ducks in '06. F'ing BS. Stupid crossbar and then a lifeless effort. Disgusting.

-Iggy getting traded. It had to be done. But I wanted to cry. Almost did

Special shoutout to the '07 series vs Detroit. It would have been the most lopsided 4 game sweep in hockey history if it wasn't for Kipper. I've never seen a Flames team that was supposed to be in their prime get their asses whipped like that. I remember on the broadcast the announcer commented how scared the Flames looked. The camera panned over and it showed Conroy and Iggy with these nervous looks on their faces. Only time I've ever seen Iggy look like that.

[socalwingfan]

Was in the nosebleeds for I believe Game 2 of the '86 Cup Finals against Montreal. Brian Skrudland scored very quickly in OT to win the game. Worst feeling I ever had at a game - back then only went to a couple of games a year so the Stanley Cup was a huge deal.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

There were actually 2 flags, I have no idea how everyone missed them.

It'd be interesting for someone to get a poll of every sports franchise as to what their absolute most heartbreaking moment was, and then compare them. You'd have Buckner, Bartman, Kerry Fraser for the Leafs... it'd be an amazing showdown of utter depression.

Losing your team must be the worse. Nordiques, Jets, Browns, Colts, Rams etc.