NHL: Calgary Flames History

The Calgary Flames are a hockey team in the National Hockey League. The team is based out of Alberta, Canada in Calgary.

The Calgary Flames were founded in 1972. In their conception they were actually not named as the Calgary Flames at all. Their early years took place in Atlanta, Georgia. In their conception they were called the Atlanta Flamers.

The Atlanta Flamers stayed in Atlanta for 8 years. From early on the franchise managed to find a lot of success. In just 8 years the team managed to make the playoffs 6 times. This was incredible for an expansion team. Often times it takes a team several years to find any success at all in the NHL. For example, the Islanders, who were also an expansion team, managed to win only 31 games combined in their first two seasons in the NHL.

Despite making it to the playoffs so frequently, the Atlanta Flamers were not able to find much success early on. In their 6 years of making the playoffs the Flamers did not manage to win any playoff series at all. In fact, in those 6 years the Flamers were only able to win two postseason games in total.

Their success did not bring in the money that the Flamers were hoping for. The owners of the flamers were never able to get good publicity or excitement around the team. This made it so they were unable to get extra funds from things such as television contracts. The finances of the team made it so they weren't able to continue on in Atlanta despite their successes. This led them to move to a different area, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Here they became known as the Calgary Flames.

The city of Calgary had already had a hockey team just recently before the Flames came into town. The Calgary Cowboys did not last in the city and were finished 3 years before. Despite the previous team not having success in the city, the Flames immediately caught the hearts of Calgary.

In their first season in Calgary the Flames were already having success. They managed to post a solid record and finish 3rd in their division. In their first season in Calgary they found more success than they had in all of their years in Atlanta. In this first year they managed to make it to the 3rd round of the playoffs. The Flames beat the BlackHawks and the Flyers before falling in the playoffs.

The Flames have been solid in their successes from the beginning. Since joining the league they have managed to win five division championships, three conference championships and a Stanley Cup.

The Stanley Cup came in the 1988-1989 season. This made it so the owner of the Calgary Flames, Sonia Scurfield, would become the first woman from Canada to ever win the Stanley Cup as an owner of the team.

The Flames had qualified for the playoffs for 4 years running previous to this year. This season the Flames struggled, failing to make the playoffs.