It wasn’t a surprise to the Calgary Flames that their Wednesday night matchup with the Los Angeles Kings got postponed.
They could taste and smell the smoke in the air. They could see the ash falling from the sky. They understood that there were priorities in L.A. that were far more important than a hockey game.
Even the night before, as they drove into the city from Anaheim after their overtime win over the Ducks, it was obvious something was very wrong.
“You could smell the smoke in the bus and then somebody sent me a picture of the fire and it’s not that far from where we were,” Flames forward Jakob Pelletier said. “The next morning, we woke up and walked to the rink and you could smell the smoke and the ash was falling on you, it was kind of crazy.
“When we flew out at night, you could see the fires burning. If felt like we were in a movie, an apocalyptic movie.”
The Flames were never in any real danger during their trip to California and their trials were nothing compared to those of locals. Ten people have died and more than 9,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed over four days as multiple wildfires raged across Los Angeles County.
More than anything, Wednesday was just a surreal day for the team. Their moms had joined them for the trip and, while they tried to go about their business as they usually would, nothing about the situation was normal – even before the game was cancelled.
“Your walk to the rink that morning, you almost had a feeling something was probably going to happen with our game because that area around the rink is usually busy and it was very quiet, the smell of smoke was really strong and you could actually see the ash in the air,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. “We went through our normal morning like we would have, (assistant coach Cail MacLean) ran his five-on-five meeting for us at 11 o’clock and then I got a message from (GM Craig Conroy) saying that the league would be postponing the game.
“Then, it was as quick as we could get ourselves organized to get out of there, that’s what we wanted to try to do. (Senior director of team operations) Sean O’Brien had his hands full with logistics and trying to get everything changed for our flights and all that stuff.”
Those logistics included getting the team’s charter to the airport, getting a flight-plan approved and then getting off the ground. Despite a few inevitable hiccups, the plane took off around 11:30 local time and, a few hours later, the Flames landed safely in Calgary.
“Good on them to put priorities where they needed to be,” said Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf, who was born and raised in California. “I feel like outside was just black clouds basically, we had views of it when we took off. It was just black and you could see the flames, it was just awful.”
The NHL will re-schedule Wednesday’s game. At a glance, it will likely be at the end of the season as there are no obvious dates over the next couple of months where the Flames could get in and out of Los Angeles quickly and when the Crypto.com Arena isn’t already booked.
That’s an issue that will be resolved when the time is right, after the wildfires in L.A. have died down.
“It was emotionally just a whirlwind, just preparing to play the game and obviously we were expecting to play, for it to be called off was a little unexpected but you’ve first and foremost got to think of the people affected,” Flames centre Nazem Kadri said.
“Obviously, our thoughts are going out to all the Californians that might be struggling out there, it was a bit of a scary scene.”