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DeletedAtUserRequest · 12-02-2020, 09:00 PM

As the son of the augment Mike Izzy, I spent allot of time in the Calgary locker room. I remember as a kid watching Randy Randelman sticking a cheesy needle in his ass and bragging how his performing enhancing parms smelled #delicious. I remember Joe K stealing the keys to the coaching room and editing the lines.. uncle Joe told me not to say anything to esa, and that 52% ice time is important. But what I remember the most was the constant excitement of post season play. Which is why I’m using this deep dive to talk about Calgary and ‘the streak’.

So what is the streak? Let’s take a look!

S24: 26 W - 20 L - 6 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S25: 29 W - 19 L - 2 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S26: 31 W - 15 L - 4 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S27: 27 W - 18 L - 5 OTL - Won Challenge Cup
S28: 29 W - 15 L - 6 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S29: 29 W - 15 L - 6 OTL - Won Challenge Cup
S30: 35 W - 13 L - 2 OTL - Lost 2nd Round Playoffs
S31: 32 W - 16 L - 2 OTL - Lost 1st Round Playoffs*
S32: 27 W - 18 L - 5 OTL - Won Challenge Cup
S33: 30 W - 14 L - 6 OTL - Lost in Cup Finals
S34: 26 W - 19 L - 5 OTL - Missed Playoffs
S35: 36 W - 12 L - 2 OTL - Lost in 2nd Round Playoffs
S36: 31 W - 15 L - 4 OTL - Lost in 2nd Round Playoffs
S37: 25 W - 19 L - 6 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S38: 25 W - 21 L - 4 OTL - Lost in Finals
S39: 33 W - 14 L - 3 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S40: 31 W - 13 L - 6 OTL - Won Challenge Cup
S41: 29 W - 19 L - 2 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S42: 29 W - 15 L - 6 OTL - Won Challenge Cup
S43: 27 W - 21 L - 2 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S44: 28 W - 18 L - 4 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S45: 22 W - 26 L - 2 OTL - Missed Playoffs
----- New Playoff Format ----
S46: 24 W - 21 L - 5 OTL - Lost in 2nd Round Playoffs
S47: 28 W - 16 L - 6 OTL - Lost in Cup Finals
S48: 24 W - 19 L - 7 OTL - Lost in Conference Finals
S49: 34 W - 13 L - 3 OTL - Lost in 2nd Round Playoffs
S50: 27 W - 20 L - 3 OTL - Won Challenge Cup
S51: 26 W - 20 L - 4 OTL - Lost in 2nd Round Playoffs
S52: 24 W - 22 L - 4 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
---- FHM Era----
S53: 31 W - 14 L - 5 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S54: 26 W - 19 L - 5 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
S55: 31 W - 13 L - 6 OTL - Lost in 1st Round Playoffs
---- New 12 team Playoff format ----
S56: 38 W - 8 L - 4 OTL - Lost in 2nd Round Playoffs

The streak is a playoff run that spans the last 33 seasons in which Calgary has made 31 of them! For over 3 straight decades the Dragons has not needed a rebuild! This accolade in my opinion is the greatest team feat in SHL history. I won’t get into the reasons behind this franchises success, but I will discuss the times where the streak was in jeopardy.

Late 30’s
By season 36, the league pundits began to call for the demise of the dragons most recent run. The roster grid were full of players in regression and some of the core guys began to slow down in activity. The team was still talented but the writing of a rebuild was on the wall...But Esa made a couple of key moves in s36 which changed the trajectory of the franchise starting with naming Joe K captain.. Kortesi was young and ambitious build around player who saw the value of adding a discord locker room for the franchise. This was critical in the upcoming seasons in creating a new atmosphere and recruiting players to the team. In the same season coach Esa traded with Edmonton to acquire rookie forward Mike Izzy who was the #4 pick in the previous draft and then selected top prospect Roman Augustus, a tpe hoarder who may have been a bit overlooked due to the great size of that s36 Reddit draft. These 3 very young players banned together with the blessing of a franchise full of great veteran players and began to reshape the franchise. All 3 worked hard populating this new locker room, even when there was no one talking for a while. All 3 recruited hard! With Joe as the STL GM We had a new Pipe line for the draft. With Izzy, Calgary was represented hard in the forums and with Danga we had members now in high level positions on the site. All 3 were TPE killers..

in the locker room the team took notice and players which were ready to concede and recreate wanted back in on this new exciting culture and began to fight regression! Nicholas Peterson was one of those players.. Some of #ZombiePeds best seasons were towards the end of his career after finding out he would be teaming up with Izzy on line 2. seeing a veteran of 20 seasons first to do all the point tasks was inspiring.

Esa rethought any options for a rebuild as this team of veterans with a young core played 6 more seasons together wining championships in s40 and S42.

Mid 40’s
Calgary milked that roster for as long as they could and by season 44 the writing was on the walls. Joe K wanted to be an SHL GM, Augustus was thinking about retirement and Mike Izzy was moving into free agency coming off of a 7 year contract. Off-season posts were flooded with a long dragons rebuild upcoming...

But after a serious look in FA, Izzy re-signed.. this was a critical moment for the franchise as Izzy was in his prime and now being asked to take on a bigger role internally. So esa and Izzy worked together in coming up with a plan to retool this franchise starting with the trade of Joe K which landed the franchise a 1st round pick and Joe a new gm gig for a great new organization. We then got a 2nd round pick for Augustus in a strong s46 Reddit draft and couple of other proactive deals to make the 46 draft a critical one for the franchise. Calgary had 5 picks in the first 3 rounds..and esa and Izzy contacted every player in that draft twice! Management was super prepared and it showed as the team selected: Barry Batsbak, Brennan Kennedy, Chico Smeb, Bernik Vrzala and Oliver Klozzoff!.. 5 players who all reached 1,100 tpe or more! This IMO was one of the biggest moments in franchise history. Esa brought Kennedy and Smeb up right away.. Batsbak hoarded tpe and was up shortly after and what looked like a long rebuild turned into 1 season of missing the playoffs and a s50 championship which went down as one of the greatest comebacks of all time as the Dragons reversed swept Tampa Bay in the finals!

Calgary’s streak of 31 out of 33 playoffs was built around a few critical moments where the franchise was ready to die but didn’t and wouldn’t.. an amazing run for a great organization.

Accepted, +5 TPE @Mike Izzy