Jarome Iginla at the Saddledome

Jarome Iginla played sixteen of his twenty NHL seasons with the Calgary Flames. He is the franchise's all-time leader in goals, points, and games played. His captaincy at the Saddledome from 2003 onward is the longest captaincy in franchise history. The 500-goal night, the 2004 Cup Final run, the Olympic gold-medal pass to Sidney Crosby in 2010: all of it traces back to the building.

Arrival

Iginla was drafted 11th overall by Dallas in 1995, then traded to Calgary the same year, in the deal that sent Joe Nieuwendyk to Dallas. He was 19. He made his NHL debut as a 19-year-old in the 1996 playoffs against Chicago and scored two goals in his second game. He was already making the small Saddledome crowds at the back end of the 1990s notice him.

Through Iginla's first six seasons, the Flames were a struggling team. They missed the playoffs every year from 1996 to 1997 through 2002 to 2003. Iginla was the bright spot. He won the Maurice Richard Trophy in 2002 with 52 goals. He won the Art Ross Trophy in 2002 with 96 points. He was, by the early 2000s, one of the league's best forwards, on a team that wasn't quite catching up to him.

The captaincy

Iginla was named captain of the Flames in October 2003, taking over from Craig Conroy. He held the C from 2003 until his trade to Pittsburgh on March 27, 2013. Ten seasons. The longest captaincy in franchise history.

The captaincy started with what was supposed to be another non-playoff season. Then the team went on the 2004 Cup run. Iginla led the team in playoff goals. He played the lead-line minutes against Vancouver, Detroit, San Jose, and Tampa Bay. The Cup Final went seven games. He scored the goal that pulled Calgary even in Game 6 (the Gélinas goal would have ended it; the no-goal call in overtime is still debated). He played 26 minutes in Game 7 in Tampa.

Calgary lost the series 4 to 3. Iginla, in the years since, has spoken about the 2004 run as the moment he understood what Calgary hockey could be. The Red Mile along 17th Avenue grew up around his team. Tens of thousands of fans packed the streets after every Saddledome win.

The 500-goal night

Iginla scored his 500th NHL goal at the Saddledome on January 7, 2012, against Minnesota. He's one of fewer than fifty players in NHL history to reach 500. The goal came on a power play, on a feed from Mikael Backlund. The Saddledome stopped for an extended ovation. His teammates poured off the bench. Iginla acknowledged the crowd from centre ice with a wave that anyone who was there can still describe.

Like Lanny McDonald's 500th in 1989, Iginla's 500th was a Saddledome moment. Both are now in the rafters in different ways: Lanny's number 9 is retired, Iginla's number 12 is retired (since 2019). The two players are bookends for the Saddledome's first thirty-five years of hockey.

The 2010 Olympic pass

Iginla wasn't at the Saddledome for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics gold-medal game, but the moment is part of his Saddledome story anyway. In overtime of the gold-medal game against the United States, Iginla took the puck behind the Canadian net, drew the U.S. defence to him, and made a no-look feed to Sidney Crosby in the slot. Crosby scored. Canada won gold.

Calgarians watching the game in their living rooms and bars all over the city had the same thought at the same time: that's Iggy. The pass was the kind of veteran-quietly-doing-the-work play Iginla had been making at the Saddledome for fifteen years. The Olympic context made the play national. The Calgary context kept it personal.

The trade

On March 27, 2013, Iginla was traded to Pittsburgh in a deal that returned Kenneth Agostino, Ben Hanowski, and a first-round pick. The trade was a moment Calgary fans had been preparing for and dreading for a year. Iginla was 35. The team was rebuilding. The trade was the right hockey move and an emotionally devastating event simultaneously.

Iginla played one and a half years with Pittsburgh, then signed with Boston, then Colorado, then back to Los Angeles. He retired in 2017. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2020. His number 12 was retired by the Flames at a 2019 ceremony at the Saddledome that still ranks among the building's most emotional non-game nights.

What Iginla meant for the Saddledome

The Saddledome's hockey identity has three rough eras: the Lanny McDonald era (1981 to 1989), the wilderness years (1989 to 2003), and the Iginla era (1996 to 2013, with the captaincy from 2003). Iginla's tenure spans the longest of the three. For Calgarians born in the 1980s and 1990s, Iginla is the Saddledome. The building's hockey memory is, for that cohort, almost entirely his.

When the Saddledome is demolished and the banners move to Scotia Place, the Iginla 12 banner will move with reverence. He's the player most associated with the building among living Calgarians.