The Calgary Flames and Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart are a five-star match

The Calgary Flames’ WHL affiliate is the best there ever is, was, or ever will be.

Bret Hart and the Calgary Flames have a lot in common.

Both are from Calgary, both are former champions who were very good for all of the 1980s and most of the 90s, and both have a history of getting screwed in Montreal.

Oh yeah, and the duo have both at one time owned Calgary’s WHL major junior hockey team, the Calgary Hitmen.

With a name inspired by Hart’s ‘The Hitman’ in-ring nickname, Hart and a collection of 17 other owners initially brought junior hockey back to Calgary in 1994 but sold the team off to the Flames in 1997. Though the team’s new ownership group adjusted the Hitmen’s color scheme to match their NHL club, the Flames ultimately decided to retain the team’s initially controversial but now iconic name and iconography.

What? You aren’t familiar with the Hitmen’s iconic logo and iconography? Well, then you, my friend, are in for a treat.

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Initially decked out in The Hart Foundation’s signature pink, black, and white with arguably the coolest logo in all of sports – a Jason Vorhees-style skater with slicked-back hair behind a cracked goaltender mask and a menacing stick – the Hitmen have since expanded their iconography to include a streamlined depiction of their logo’s mask and even an alternative version of said logo featuring Hart’s signature wrap around pink shades and a pair of wings.

Fun Fact: Hart would often wear a Hitmen emblazoned jacket to the ring in WCW and even infamously hid a steel plate under the team’s black jersey to thwart a spear from Goldberg before ultimately quitting the company.

In that very same year that happened – 1999 – the Hitmen also won their first WHL Championship, marking the culmination of a rocky start, a head coaching change, and an unlikely underdog-like rise to the top. The team would go on to win the championship one more time in 2010 and made the playoffs every year from 1998 to 2010 before settling into a middle-of-the-pack position as a near-constant WHL playoff contender.

With potential Hall-of-Fame bound alumni like Ryan Getzlaf and an ever-expanding list of draftees, including but not limited to Riley Stotts and Mark Kastelic, the Hitmen have established themselves as one of the more successful WHL franchises, all the while continuing to maintain a strong relationship with the man who started it all.

That’s right, even though Hart has not owned the team in well over two decades, he has remained an ever-present part of the organization, appearing at games, taking part in team interviews with fan-generated questions, and even holding a charity wrestling match at the Scotiabank Saddledome on ‘Bret Hart Night‘ to raise money for pancreatic cancer – a match you can watch in full here.

Not too shabby for a Calgary native who readily admits he was more of an Edmonton Oilers fan during his time in the ring.

Truly the Calgary Hitmen are a meeting of the minds that seems a bit too weird to be real but is just too cool to close up shop. With a firm stronghold in the Calgary market, a dedicated fanbase that once averaged 10,000 fans per game, and an annual Teddy Bear Toss that transitioned into a drive-thru event in 2020, the Hitmen are no longer the plucky hooligans that caused some to protest their name and have instead become an institution on par with the Flames and even the Hart wrestling family. Now, if only they’d bring back their original black, white, and pink ‘Hitmen’ jerseys in a WHL equivalent of the 2021 Reverse Retros – that would be cool for hockey and wrestling fans alike.