Folks, it’s been a fairly quiet off-season for the Calgary Flames since the 2024 NHL Draft, to the point where the most common question we’ve received from fans has been some variation of “Who’s going to replace Rick Ball on the television broadcasts?”

Well, we have our answer, as the Flames and Sportsnet jointly announced on Monday morning that Jon Abbott will be joining the Sportsnet regional television broadcasts in the play-by-play role. Per the release, he’ll be joined by Kelly Hrudey and Greg Millen on colour commentary and Ryan Leslie as host. Abbott takes over for longtime TV voice Rick Ball, who departed Sportsnet this off-season to take a role calling Chicago Blackhawks games.

Originally from Alymer, Ontario, Abbott is touted as having 24 years of sports broadcast experience at a variety of levels. He’s covered hockey on both television and radio, both at the international and club levels. On the international side, he’s been involved in broadcasting the World Juniors, World Championships and Olympics. On the club side, in addition to covering the American Hockey League and junior broadcasts, he’s called games for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators and Vancouver Canucks.

The Flames begin their 2024-25 campaign with prospect camp and the Penticton Young Stars Classic tournament in mid-September. Following that, pre-season hockey begins in the third week of September and the regular season kicks off in Vancouver on Oct. 9. In keeping with previous seasons, we’re expecting Sportsnet to release their broadcast schedule for the upcoming season sometime in September, but given that the first pair of games are national broadcasts, Abbott’s debut as Flames play-by-play voice may be the first Battle of Alberta of the season on Oct. 13.

We’ll have more details on the upcoming season’s broadcasts as they become available, but welcome to Calgary, Jon!