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<\/p>\nThe tribute to Weegar came during the first television timeout of the first period. Joining in the applause were players on both teams who loudly banged their sticks against the boards.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the market here. They love their hockey, they love their players, and if you just buy into the system and you work super hard every night, and you wear that jersey with a lot of pride, they\u2019ll show it back to you,\u201d said Weegar with a wide smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, that\u2019s all I wanted to do when I was here, just wear that jersey with pride and give it all I got and I\u2019m glad they noticed it and it goes both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ovation came as no surprise to Ryan Huska.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou expected it,\u201d said the Flames bench boss. \u201cThere\u2019s certain guys that come back and they get the Bronx cheer and stuff like that, but Mackenzie was such a big personality in the community as well, that everybody knew who Mackenzie was, so it was nice to see him get the ovation that he did get from the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n
About to miss the post-season for a fourth season in a row, Calgary traded Weegar on March 4 in exchange for veteran defenceman Olli Maatta, Cornell University centre Jonathan Castagna, who has since signed with Calgary, and three 2026 second-round draft picks.<\/p>\n
Weegear, 32, waived his no-trade clause to consummate the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe a few nerves here and there, but nothing crazy,\u201d said Weegar, who came to Calgary in July 2022 with Jonathan Huberdeau in the trade for Matthew Tkachuk. \u201cI was more excited just to see the guys in warm-up and, obviously their antics, it didn\u2019t surprise me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
While being interviewed on TV, former teammates Blake Coleman, Mikael Backlund, and Matt Coronato started peppering their old teammate with pucks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were shooting pucks at me right away,\u201d said Weegar with a chuckle. \u201cColesy, Backs, Matty, I felt like I got more blocked shots in the warm-up than I did all season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Utah has locked up a spot in the post-season, but which wild-card spot is still to be determined..<\/p>\n
The Mammoth currently hold down the top spot with two games to go. The Los Angeles Kings are three points back with three games remaining.<\/p>\n
As they attempt to get back to their winning ways \u2013 Utah had won five straight before dropping consecutive games this weekend \u2013 their final two games are at home against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday and the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Down 2-0 after 20 minutes and being outshot 14-4, the Mammoth had a chance to get back in the game early in the second when they went on the power play.<\/p>\n
Weegar had the best chance when a lane opened up in front of him and he carried the puck in from the blueline, only to be denied on a glove stop from Dustin Wolf.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll sleep on that one, for sure. I feel like I\u2019m thinking about it right now,\u201d said Weegar. \u201cI could have got him in a couple different areas, but he played great tonight. I\u2019ll give him credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolf knew exactly who he was staring down in that pivotal moment in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a class act and was such a good buddy of mine for the years I was here,\u201d said Wolf. \u201cHe was a guy you hate to see go, but it was nice to get the first leg up on him with the nice glove save.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did he know what was coming from facing him countless times in practice?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the Weegar I know,\u201d Wolf said with a wry smile. \u201cHe tries to fool me, but he needs to try a little harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2026.<\/p>\n
Darren Haynes, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tribute to Weegar came during the first television timeout of the first period. Joining in the applause…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-601130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}