‘Absolutely epic’: Tkachuk recalls need for personal security during 2020’s heated Battle of Alberta

Calgary Flames' Matthew Tkachuk (19) and Edmonton Oilers' Zack Kassian (44) fight during first period NHL action in Edmonton, Alta., on Wednesday January 29, 2020.

It was as memorable to Matthew Tkachuk as it was for the fans a half-dozen years ago.

The Florida Panthers forward went down memory lane on the most recent episode of a podcast he co-hosts with his brother, fellow National Hockey League star Brady Tkachuk, recounting a string of four regular-season games between the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers during the 2019-20 campaign.

Matthew Tkachuk, then starring for the Flames, recounted on Wingmen his role in what were particularly heated clashes between the provincial rivals.

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The brothers had been commenting on the recent back-to-back games over Christmas the two teams played, remarking how spirited the home-and-home Edmonton-Calgary set was.

“That is a great rivalry,” said Tkachuk, who joined the Panthers in 2022 after a trade from the Flames. “I’ve got to give a shout-out to my old fans out in Calgary, because the building looked pretty electric. It always is for those games, but it’s good to see that rivalry picking up again, because I think the last few years it really hasn’t been there.”

In 2020, Tkachuk and then-Oilers winger Zack Kassian were front and centre of the Battle of Alberta, having traded heavy hits and punches over the second and third games of the set they played in just more than a month’s time.

Tkachuk, in a game on Jan. 11 that year at Calgary’s Saddledome, landed two hard checks on Kassian, the second leading the Oiler to drop his gloves, punch the agitator repeatedly and throw him to the ice twice.

Referees gave Kassian double-minor and 10-minute misconduct penalties as a result, while Tkachuk went unpenalized. The Flames scored the winning goal on the ensuing power play in a 4-3 win. Kassian also received a two-game suspension.

The rematch between the Oilers came a little more than two weeks later, featuring a fight between Tkachuk and Kassian, and more bad blood between the teams on the ice.

But leading up to it, Tkachuk revealed in the podcast episode that dropped New Year’s Eve that Flames staff in 2020 took extra precautions leading up to the Jan. 29 game at Edmonton’s Rogers Place to ensure Tkachuk wouldn’t become a target for unhappy Oilers fans.

Tkachuk said staff had registered him under a different name at the hotel in which the team stayed before the game – as Hakan Loob, a 1980s Flames star – employed security guards and made him take a bus to the arena even though his teammates simply walked the short distance across the street to it.

“A bus for one, just me and the security cop,” Tkachuk said, further reminiscing about the warm-up before the game, detailing the sea of signs, turtle costumes and the like all directed at him.

“It was just unbelievable,” he said. “Grown men going on a night out (saying) ‘Let’s throw on these costumes and go to a game.’ Nerds.”

The fourth game on Feb. 2 that year saw Tkachuk fight again, this time against then-Oilers blueliner Ethan Bear. Their bout, which came during a brawl, was upstaged by another one: a rare goalie fight between the Oilers’ Mike Smith and the Flames’ Cam Talbot.

“I’d say that was as peak of a Battle of Alberta as I’m ever going to be a part of,” Tkachuk said. “For sure, a highlight of my hockey career was those few weeks in Calgary, because that was absolutely, absolutely epic.”