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“I went into the other room and I cried,” he said. “I knew it was going to be my last kick at the can. I came back in the room and it was quiet.”

Iginla’s eyes were red, too, the full ranges of raw, human emotion on public display.

Watching again, over 15 years later, Gelinas eyes welled with tears.

“It doesn’t feel better today,” he said.

Conroy agreed.

“No,” he said. “It didn’t feel any better …”

So, why? Why now?

First of all, these three gentlemen have made this city their permanent homes since that magical run. They aren’t alone. Warrener, of course, had co-hosted the Sportsnet 960 The Fan morning show and has made the transition into the Flames’ hockey operations.

Iginla’s storied NHL career continued with the Flames while other faces stayed, came and went.

The 2004 group was never the same after that, and neither was the game itself when the NHL came back after the lockout had wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.

Photo by Postmedia Archives

“Jarome had said to us (after the loss), ‘Hey, we’re going to come back. One day,’” Conroy said. “But it was never the same, after the lockout. Guys were already gone … You think you’re able to come back, so that helped for a second (in the moment). The problem was, we had a long flight (home to Calgary). It was pretty painful on that flight home.”

But there was that run.

That team.

There will be nothing like it.

“The whole run, it was pretty special,” Gelinas said. “Every day, I’m grateful and thankful I am doing something I love. Obviously, it would have been nice to win it. But I was still a part of it. We still had a chance to win it. And that’s why we’re in the game. We love it. We want to win. We know how special it was and it is in this city when things get rolling.