Friends, the Calgary Flames play hockey on Friday night. Sure, it’s “just” a pre-season prospect tournament, but it’s hockey, gosh darn it.
As we wait for the return of the most beautiful game, let’s check in with our pals in the mailbag!
I will make a disclaimer: I know the current anthem crew a bit, so I’m biased in favour of George Canyon and Michela Sheedy because I hear their anthems all the time and, to me, hearing them before a game just feels like Flames hockey. (It also helps that they’re good singers that sing the anthems very well.) A couple times a year, they have Charley Kobelka sing, and she’s also great. I’m a fan of having a rotation of singers, as you get a different style and vibe from each one, and it allows for a different energy in the building.
I grew up on Susan Smith and Heather Liscano, and I think they were also both incredible, but they had the benefit of doing the anthems before some really awesome games, so they’re associated in many fans’ minds with the franchise’s glory days. Liscano is probably the most beloved of the post-2005 anthem singers because of singing anthems during the 2004 Cup run. (And because she was great at it.)
According to the design brief on the Scotia Place website:
In addition to meeting Calgary’s Sustainable Buildings Policy (2017) as a minimum project requirement, the Calgary Event Centre Block will also target Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification.
There’s nothing specific listed about the building’s climate control, but the systems will be much more advanced than what’s currently in the Saddledome, so it’s reasonable to expect the building to be more comfortable (and ice better) into the spring and summer than the ‘Dome presently is.
I don’t think I’m being overly pessimistic when I suggest that I won’t be covering playoff hockey this coming spring. That’s nothing against the current group, but rather merely a reflection that they’re in a revamping process and their roster reflects that.
However, I think the Flames players – veteran and young alike – are going to be motivated. The veterans will want to help steer the ship through the choppy rebuild waters as smoothly and quickly as they can, and the young players will be trying to grab onto NHL opportunities as they become available. (And honestly, I’m sure they’re going to see how low they’re ranked on various pre-season rankings and come into camp with a chip on their collective shoulder.) I suspect the team won’t win a ton of games, but that they’ll do their best to be a tough night at the office. This coming season is about laying a foundation and solidifying the right habits, so that the team is set to take a step as their young players mature over time.
Honestly, I’m kind of excited about seeing this group perform without the weight of expectations. Sometimes expectations can get into a person’s head and get them away from doing what they do well, even unintentionally. Take off the expectations and just letting the players play and do their thing might be a good first step to seeing everybody progress. The Flames might not win a ton this coming season, but they might be more entertaining stylistically than they have been in years.
I think Quinn Hughes is awesome. I had him on my Norris and Hart Trophy ballots this season. He’s great. The hope among scouts was that Hughes could adjust to pro hockey quickly after two seasons at the University of Michigan excelling while playing against men. You could make a very real argument that Hughes has exceeded those expectations.
Zayne Parekh has played two seasons in the OHL against teenagers… and he has dominated offensively. It’s unfair to expect him to be “Quinn Hughes good” – Hughes is a gigantic outlier – but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that Parekh can further dominate the OHL this season, have a strong showing at the World Juniors, and make it really tough for the Flames to send him back to junior for his 19-year-old season in 2025-26. He has a lot of the tools – the vision, the mobility, the confidence with the puck, and the adaptability to figure out the defensive side of things – that make scouts optimistic about his long-term upside.
If those are my choices, I’m saying Anthony Mantha gets traded before Kevin Rooney or Rasmus Andersson does.
From Hannah via e-mail: Wondering what you think of perhaps getting Nick Robertson to play for the Flames?
Nick Robertson is a left winger that turns 23 this week. He’s bounced between the Maple Leafs and Marlies for the past few seasons, and he’s played 87 NHL games and 60 AHL games. Between injuries and his waiver status, he hasn’t played a ton of pro hockey. But despite that small sample size, it does seem like he’s progressing somewhat at the NHL level – his points-per-game has ticked upward in each of his four pro seasons. When he’s been healthy and playing regularly, he’s shown some promise.
Here’s the things that make me nervous about trading for Robertson: he’s a left-shot winger and the Flames have tons of those, he requires waivers to go to the AHL and the nightmare scenario is trading for him and then losing him on waivers, and I’m not certain what problem he solves within the Flames system. The gaps the Flames have involve centres or right-shot forwards (or ideally, right shot centres) and I’m not sure what the appetite would be to gamble on Robertson rather than providing NHL opportunities to players they already have in-house.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/X at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan [at] TheNationNetwork.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)

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