[Rumour] Flames Considering Axing 'Forever a Flame'

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

With so many people abbreviating "Forever a Flame" as "FaF" I'm sure glad we're not the Panthers, Predators, or Penguins.

Or the Giants.

[ComixZone]

I’m on board with retiring 2, 14, 25, and 34, but then you stop until #5 goes into the rafters. No other legacy players are at that level.

We don’t have a lot of history, but we should honour what we do have.

[agulati]

I'm glad to see the FaF program is potentially being pulled. Either retirement or nothing. If you want to honour an ex-flames player without retiring a jersey, there are other ways to do that. Raising a number to the rafters should mean only one thing.

[Corral]

As a fan of this team for decades, I would be deeply disappointed to see #12 or #14 on any other player. Great players have worn other numbers for sure - #10 with Roberts and #25 with Nieuwendyk- etc ... but seeing those numbers back on ice frankly just doesn't bother me. (same with #9 and #30).

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Or the Giants.

Remember A Giant

[Redliner]

I understand all the reasons for it, but Forever a Flame was always kind of a stupid idea. 9, 12, and 30 should stay in the rafters as they're "officially" retired. 2 and 25 should come down but the Flames find another way to honour the player - either a display on the concourse or maybe a "Wall of Flames" or something. 14 and 34 can be honoured that way as well.

A jersey retirement should be a really, really big deal. I love the Flames - always have - but a franchise with a 39-year history of 1 cup and otherwise limited playoff success should not have 7 or more jerseys retired.

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by Bingo

So how do they do this?

They can't have two more ceremonies as both players already had one. Do they do a joint release as apologize for the two tier system? Or just a politically correct announcement of moving the players up in status?

I'm glad it's being looked at, but its not easy to wiggle out from under.

Maybe wait for new stadium, have it be part of pre game festivities on first game, just a surprise reveal, so many former flames will be there anyway

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Unless you were in the room, I think you are buying into a lot of what was created by the Flames and Lanny about Lanny. Firstly, the Flames were legit from day one in Calgary, going pretty deep into the POs year one and having a guy at the top of the points standings, up there with Dionne and Gretzky. And I don't know where you get this long history of "forever expansion feel" since Lanny got here in Calgary's second year. His 66 goals were something else. But it was really a one-off, and Nilsson was a huge reason for it. He was never close before and certainly not after.

The dominant teams that developed were, IMO a product mainly of excellent team building by Fletcher and excellent coaching by Badger Bob. The team really hit its stride in 85-86, when you saw guys like MacInnis, Loob, Suter, Otto, make an impact and you added Mullen, Tonelli, Vernon, etc.

There were a number of players who weren't really thrilled with relocating from a warm climate like Atlanta to Calgary. One of the biggest reasons for the McDonald trade was to change the culture.

[mennoknight]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

I’m on board with retiring 2, 14, 25, and 34, but then you stop until #5 goes into the rafters. No other legacy players are at that level.

We don’t have a lot of history, but we should honour what we do have.

Agreed. High time we recognized Dana Murzyn's contributions.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by mennoknight

Agreed. High time we recognized Dana Murzyn's contributions.

First defenceman to score a hat trick for Calgary!

[Itse]

For me there's three things wrong with what the Flames have done so far.
1) Fleury needs to get his jersey retired.

2) Forever a Flame is a dumb name and a dumb thing as is. If you need to explain to an out-of-town fan what it is, you're doing it wrong. So please no "Wall of Flames" either. Keep it self-explanatory.

Also, if the explanation is "it's jersey retirement except the jersey isn't actually retired", that should really obviously tell you you're doing it wrong.

3) There's guys who aren't getting the accolades they deserve. Regehr for example.

Solution to 2 and 3 is pretty much the same; take down the FaF banners from the ceiling and create a place where you can honor/remember long time Flames, something with a self-explanatory name. It would also make for a good reason to have a nice opening ceremony where you could have all the FaF guys with new additions, without it being too weird.

Personally I would call such a place the Hall of History, as it's way less pompous than a hall of fame, and I think it would be more fitting for a franchise that despite it's storied history doesn't have a lot of what out-of-towners would call fame. (But a Hall of Fame would obviously work fine.)

A hall of history is also a lot more accomodating. You could include pretty much anyone with 10+ seasons as a Flame without it becoming too crowded too fast, and you could more easily include guys that are only Flames fans care about.

I'd love to see a place where guys like Jim Peplinski (700 GP, co-captain for multiple seasons, whole career with the Flames), Joel Otto, Robyn Regehr etc. are side by side with guys like Iginla and Vernon. Yeah, I would even like to see Tim Hunter get recognized. That guy literally bled for the Flames, a lot. 11 seasons in Calgary is a long time too.

In general I'd like to see something that's more about remembering guys who bled Flames colours season after season, than just another place to shower accolades on the superstars.

[the2bears]

Just to be clear, raising a banner for Garth Brooks is "Oiler level". Raising a banner for winning an online poll is "Oiler level". Nothing the Flames have done here is remotely close to being "Oiler level".

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Funkhouser

I hate 'Forever a Flame'...at the same time there needs to be tiers of recognition.

Lanny and Iggy are the only two that deserve to be retired IMO
2, 14, 25, 30 and 34 all deserve some sort of recognition, but cheezy banners isn't it. Neither is a full blown retirement. Just put something in the concourse for the lower tier players.

A franchise with one cup shouldn't have 5-6 retired numbers. The optics are Edmonton levels of embarrassing

Originally Posted by shutout

This might be one of the dumbest things I have ever read.
Learn more than the last decade of the franchise history before making comments.
McDonald arriving changed the culture of the franchise. He gave it a sense of class and culture. Before him we had that forever expansion team feel, but after we acquired him the team became a truly legitimate franchise. He was a huge part of creating a culture of winning in the dressing room, and gave an example to new players about how to play on the ice, and how to act off the ice. Without his presence I doubt that the Flames develop the dominant teams that they had in the late 80's.
66 goals in a season. Find me another player that is going to be able to do that for the Flames.

Not nearly as dumb as not having 14 already in the rafters. Ohhh, he had 66 goals in one season and has a cool mustache. Great. People argue Chopper should not have his number retired because of his contribution to the Blues but Lanny McDonald is more of a Leaf points wise than a Flame. Sorry but Fleury and MacInnis contributed way more then Lanny ever did to the Calgary Flames. Anyone saying Fleury should not be retired either never was around for that era or just have a personal vendetta against the guy. If the dollar doesn't crash and we could have kept him here as long as Iggy played here he finishes first in all offensive numbers and it wouldn't have been even remotely close.

[Itse]

A few numbers thrown around for scale:
525 players have played for the Flames so far. (526 if you count Brennan Evans )

11 of those have played 10+ seasons in Calgary. That's top 2%. Throw in a few of the other notables (franchise record holders like Kent Nilsson and Kipper, and yeah another reason to have Lanny there) and maybe a couple of coaches (Darryl, Badger Bob) and you still have at most 20 guys for 40 years of history, which doesn't seem too outrageous.

(Plus you can always quietly remove some of the more obscure ones if things start to get crowded, or replace them with maybe a list of record holders etc.)

[Flashpoint]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Ohhh, he had 66 goals in one season and has a cool mustache. Great..

Holy cow.

What’s wrong with you? Get some help. Maybe cheer for a different team.

It was the 3rd most goals in NHL history at the time, and he captained the franchise from nowhere to the finals and then a Cup in a handful of years.

All while being an amazing human being, and role model for the city.

Sheer lunacy some of the takes in this thread. I’ll just assume a lot of it is youthful ignorance, but damn.

[midniteowl]

Originally Posted by habernac

No MacInnis, no Cup. His needs to be retired.

No Vernon, no cup as well. If he didn't stop that breakaway from Stan Smyl when the score was tied, the Flames would have been eliminated in the first round. And MacInnis wouldn't have the chance to score all those goals to win the Conn Smythe Trophy.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

Holy cow.

What’s wrong with you? Get some help. Maybe cheer for a different team.

It was the 3rd most goals in NHL history at the time, and he captained the franchise from nowhere to the finals and then a Cup in a handful of years.

All while being an amazing human being, and role model for the city.

Sheer lunacy some of the takes in this thread. I’ll just assume a lot of it is youthful ignorance, but damn.

I'm willing to bet I'm older than you. I think Lanny deserved his number retirement. But I'm not as enamored of him either as a Flames contributor or as a human being/role model. A couple things soured me on him somewhat, which need not be debated here.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

Holy cow.

What’s wrong with you? Get some help. Maybe cheer for a different team.

And just who in the hell do you think you are to tell me to cheer for a different team? How can possibly argue Lanny McDonald should have his number up there while two players who did much more on the ice for them are not retired? Wait, I don't care because some irrelevant nobody who tries to dictate who I can cheer for says so. People can have differing views. Don't like it? Nobody cares guy.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Funkhouser

I hate 'Forever a Flame'...at the same time there needs to be tiers of recognition.

I agree. Tier one: Retired number, Tier two: Not retired number

Why the need to water down the accomplishment of being honoured by a sports organization? Toronto and Montreal were forced to do something because they simply couldn't retire as many numbers as they had deserving players.

Since then it's like a bunch of teams including the Flames went "Yeah, we should do something like that too because we're also a sports team!!"

[David Struch]

If the Flames are not going to retire #2 and #25 how are they going to take those banners down?