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In what has been the bluntest talk yet about the future of the Calgary Flames, president of hockey operations Brian Burke said the NHL team will move if a new arena is not built.

“We’re not going to make the threat to leave. We’ll just leave,” Burke told a business luncheon at the Canadian Club of Calgary on Wednesday.

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“We still have a building that was built in 1983, the oldest in the league by more than 10 years.

“They figured it out in Edmonton, where they know that a new building can rejuvenate the downtown. But I guess we’re just smarter than that here.”

But in the hours after Burke’s comments were published online, Ken King, Flames president and CEO, issued a statement saying Burke is not the club’s spokesman on the new arena and that the Flames are still committed to working with the city towards a solution.

Burke’s speech aimed to focus on the financial challenges that Canadian NHL teams face, from a low Canadian dollar to greater public support for new facilities in the U.S.