One of the cooler parts about covering the Calgary Flames is roaming the concourses during many, many games. In addition to helping me hit my daily step goals, it’s a great chance to see what jerseys fans have worn to each game.

There’s often some unique and interesting ones – my personal favourite is a St. Patrick’s Day Jakub Nakadal warm-up jersey from 2015-16. But occasionally, you’ll see a jersey with a familiar name bar and an unfamiliar number: a reflection of up-and-coming players that made the Flames roster… and then subsequently changed their jersey number.

Earlier this week, we got a hint that it may happen again pretty soon.

Flames top prospect Zayne Parekh was asked about seeing fans wearing his jersey (which currently features #89), via Flames TV:

Yeah, I’ve seen a couple. It’s pretty cool and, you know, I don’t know what I’m going to do with the number stuff. So, you know, I hope they’re not buying too many.

While Parekh was assigned #89 for Flames development camp in 2024, he’s worn #19 with the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit and before that with the GTHL’s Markham Majors. And with that number vacant after the 2022 departure of Matthew Tkachuk, it certainly feels like Parekh could be swapping his digits fairly soon.

And changing up his jersey number after making his NHL debut would very much be continuing a trend, because a lot of Flames players have done that.

Flames that changed numbers

Here’s a smattering of prominent Flames that swapped jersey numbers after debuting:

Al MacInnis debuted wearing #11 during 1981-82 and then moved to #22 in 1982-83 (Steve Christoff made the team out of camp and MacInnis didn’t, so Christoff got #11) before landing with his famous #2 in 1983-84 (in a reversal of the prior year, MacInnis was assigned #2 after its previous holder, Charlie Bourgeois, was sent to the minors to open that season).

Jarome Iginla debuted wearing #24 during the 1995-96 playoffs and through the first part of 1996-97, but he switched to #12 after Paul Kruse (who had #12 when Iginla arrived) was traded midway through the season.

Mark Giordano debuted wearing #46 in 2005-06, but switched to #5 in 2006-07.

Mikael Backlund debuted wearing #60 in 2008-09 and through his call-ups in 2009-10 before switching to #11 in 2010-11.

TJ Brodie debuted wearing #66 in 2010-11, then switched to #7 in 2o11-12.

Johnny Gaudreau wore #53 in his NHL debut in 2013-14 before switching to #13 in 2014-15.

Sam Bennett wore #63 during his first NHL appearances in 2014-15, then switched to #93 in 2015-16 when he became a full-time NHLer.

Rasmus Andersson debuted wearing #54 in 2016-17 and through his call-ups in 2017-18 before moving to #4 in 2018-19.

Jakob Pelletier wore #49 during 2022-23 before switching to #22 in 2023-24.

Flames that kept their original number

But some players don’t change their numbers. Granted, many of them debut with a pretty good, low number and stick with it forever – among them players like Sean Monahan (#23), Tkachuk (#19), Dustin Wolf (#32) and others.

Some players get higher numbers and end up liking them. Andrew Mangiapane was given #88 in training camp in 2015 and has worn in everywhere he’s gone. Micheal Ferland similarly received #79 as a prospect and stuck with it. Ditto Mark Jankowski and his #77, which he had as a Flame and returned to during his stint with Carolina. Heck, most recently Connor Zary has mentioned in several interviews that he’s keeping #47, in part because many of his family members and friends have bought his jersey already.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Do you prefer players keep their original, usually high jersey numbers? Or do you like it when they switch numbers when they become NHL regulars? Let us know in the comments!

This article is brought to you by the Alberta Teachers Association

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