20 years ago, Jarome Iginla made his NHL debut

In something that will no doubt make many of us feel quite old, today’s the anniversary of a pretty noteworthy event in Calgary Flames – and National Hockey League – history. Twenty years ago today, highly-touted Western Hockey League product Jarome Iginla was whisked from Kamloops (where the Blazers had just been eliminated from the post-season) to Calgary to make his NHL debut in Game 3 of the Flames’ first round series with Chicago.

Iginla was +2 with three shots on goal (and an assist), but the Flames lost the game 7-5 en route to a series sweep by the Blackhawks.

Iginla and the Flames wouldn’t return to the post-season for another eight years, when the radically-different Flames would march into the seventh game of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final (and sadly fall short). All-told, Iginla has played 1,474 regular season (and 81 playoff) games between Calgary, Pittsburgh, Boston and his current home in Colorado. He scored his 600th career goal in January.

He currently stands:

And it all began 20 years ago today.