FEEDING FRENZY

Simply looking at the box score of a game between the Flames and the Sharks from 30 years ago on Feb. 10, 1993, you might get the impression that it was pretty quiet in the Calgary crease.
The Flames had limited their upstart opponents to just one goal, while lighting the lamp 13 times, a franchise record that still stands to this day.
But that's not how former goaltender Jeff Reese remembers it.
"I actually had to make a few saves," he recalled recently in a telephone interview. "I actually played a decent game, if I remember correctly."

Reese, who has been the goaltending coach for the Dallas Stars for the better part of a decade, let in one goal early into the contest but ended up making 26 saves in the rout.
While Reese did his part between the pipes, he also contributed offensively that night, picking up three assists, an NHL record that still stands to this day.
"I wasn't a top-notch puck handler," he said. "It was just one of those nights where everything seemed to go your way."
Indeed, it did. Only a handful of Flames didn't register a point that game.
One of those players who cashed in on the offensive onslaught was Ronnie Stern, who was playing in his second full season with Calgary after he was traded there from Vancouver a couple of years earlier.
Stern, who had just five goals so far that season, made it 4-1 for the Flames late in the first period, before adding two more in the final frame to record his second career hattrick.
"I was all excited," Stern said. "I always tell people that I thought it was the year I was going to score 20 goals and I think I only ended up with seven goals."

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Although Stern shortchanged himself a little bit, he ended up finishing with 10, hitting double-digits for the second straight season, he was not exactly known for scoring in bunches.
"For someone like myself, getting a hat-trick in the NHL was a pretty big feat," Stern said. "Pretty exciting when you score as few goals as I did."
But as thrilling as it was for Stern, by the time he completed the hat-trick, it was 12-1 for the Flames late in the third period.
"You're still excited, but you also understand that you can't rub it in, and you can't celebrate too much," he said. "There are some guys out there who could take liberties, so you're definitely not trying to celebrate too much and be respectful."
Although the Flames still had a job to do, Reese recalls thinking along the same lines. "You're just trying to get through the game without getting injured," the former netminder said. "Players are thinking about just getting through the next one."
When the final buzzer sounded, and both Reese and Stern emerged unscathed, reality set in for the goaltender. He hadn't realized he had made history.
"Certainly didn't think it was a record," he said. "Thought Grant Fuhr or Billy Smith would have had it, so it was a really special thing."
Although Reese was proud of the way he played on both sides of the puck, he felt bad for his colleagues at the other end of the ice.
After Arturs Irbe gave up seven goals just over the halfway mark of the second period, the Latvian netminder was replaced by Jeff Hackett, who Reese trained with during the offseason.
Years later, when Irbe and Reese were honing their skills as goalie coaches, they met each other for the first time.
"The first thing Irbe said was 'I remember you. I remember that night,'" Reese said with a chuckle.
Stern became even more acquainted with the Sharks, signing as a free agent in San Jose in 1998, but by the time he got there, there was nobody remaining on the roster who had endured the drubbing.
Three decades later, the thing that still sticks out the most for Reese from that game is his astonishment that he still holds the league record for the most points in a game by a goalie.
"It still surprises me," he said. "The way the guys handle the puck now, it's just a dimension in your game."