The Calgary Flames will host the Crowchild Classic at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday, Jan. 25. The on-ice contests will feature the women’s and men’s hockey teams from the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University in back-to-back action. This double header is a part of the Crowchild Classic series, an ongoing contest between the two universities.
The women will face off at 4:00 p.m. MT and the men will play at 6:45 p.m. MT.
In previous years, the Crowchild Classic has set a U SPORTS men’s hockey attendance record with a total of 12,859 fans in attendance in 2016. In the first installment of the rivalry game in 2012, the Crowchild Classic broke a 42-year-old Canada West record. In just five short years, the game has become a fixture on the Calgary sports scene and one of the marquee university sport events in Canada each year.
The Crowchild Classic was initiated in 2012 to mark the first year of U SPORTS competition between Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary. The annual competition pits the two schools together in regular season games in basketball, hockey, soccer and volleyball with the winner receiving the coveted ‘medal’, a 68-kg cast-iron City of Calgary manhole cover.
The Calgary Flames are proud supporters of the three post secondary institutes in Calgary through the Flames Foundation. Each institute’s men’s and women’s hockey teams receive an annual $20,000 donation and award three students per year at each school with the Harley Hotchkiss Scholarship. This is the sixth year the Flames will host the Crowchild Classic as part of their commitment to education and amateur sports.