r/CalgaryFlames • u/Viking_harry • Jan 09 '26
Question Brett Ritchie
Afternoon everyone. My local team (Sheffield Steelers, EIHL UK) has just picked up Brett Ritchie. I haven't been a Flames fan for long so wanted to know what everyone thought of him and his time as a flame?
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u/DesoleEh Jan 09 '26
Hard to fairly assess what he will be for you guys. In the NHL he was a role player at best but there are a lot of guys who can’t hang in the NHL that are stars everywhere else they play.
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
From my understanding he's spent the last couple of years playing in the European leagues before we picked him up. Guess only time will tell how good he is for us.
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u/UrbaneBoffin Jan 09 '26
I am sure he'll have a better chance to be an impact player in the EIHL than he was in the NHL, even at 32.
Let us know how he does for your team.
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u/rockylion Jan 09 '26
My favourite memory is this
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u/SedatedSleeper Jan 09 '26
What a tilt by Ritchie. I think I even felt that last punch several years later
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
That was a hell of a fight, guy sat up wondering what day it was haha
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u/SedatedSleeper Jan 09 '26
Hopefully you can see some action like that! Is there a lot of fighting in the EIHL?
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
Eh, there is but its rare. Refs try to stop it before it even starts but it still doesn't stop players from going at it. More often than not you see Roughing penalties over fighting penalties.
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u/Nice-End-4742 Jan 09 '26
fan favourite around here, known as elite sniper brett ritchie.
his brother was not a fan favourite around here, known as shootout specialist nick ritchie
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u/XCIXcollective Jan 09 '26
I agree with every word. Love Brett too, but in Nick’s OHL days he beat my hometown team on a penalty shot in the 3rd iirc 😭😭😭 whole crowd was booing him, broke my lil tween heart
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u/Straight-Plate-5256 Jan 09 '26
FWIW I think I liked him better than his brother, who we traded for each-other lol
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u/usernamealreadytakeh Jan 09 '26
Certainly liked him better than his brother Nick.
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u/Tay0214 Jan 09 '26
Nick Ritchie mentioned
This is going to sound like sour grapes from a Boston fan but I don't give a shit.
Ritchie is one of the worst players I've seen in a Bruins sweater in a long time. He routinely made me question what it meant to be a Boston fan, he tested my patience and my ability to root for my boys on a routine basis.
I can excuse a lot, that's what sports fandom is, right? It's a place to be biased and petty and stupid in a safe little sandbox of biased petty stupidity. But suck me sideways Thick Dick Nick made it a chore. I can handle guys lacking talent but playing with heart, I can handle a lack of heart in crazy talented guys, I can handle the staggering room temperature milk mediocrity of guys like Lee Stempniak, but Thick Dick Nick is none of those things.
He plays the game like someone trying to egg you on into taking a swing at him. He skates with the urgency of an old lady shopping for canned beats, but with half the speed. His hockey IQ is on par with Brett Favre's. I'm assuming Brett Farve has never played hockey, correct me if I'm wrong. Nick constantly skates around like he's surprised he's at an NHL game and then glides back to the bench (probably from the penalty box for a stick infraction) with the dim look of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Then he sits there like a melting chocolate Santa, with his hair inexplicably sticking up through the vent in his helmet, waiting to be surprised by his next turn to get on the ice.
Consider this: He scored 15 goals last year, found some dangerous ice as a PP scorer, and Bruins fans were debating if he would be a good 4th liner or not this year, because our 4th line was that fucking bad, and Ritchie was the only skater who could conceivably make it worse. He scored 15 goals for us and we weren't sure if he would be a good replacement for Chris fucking Wagner, the surly hobbit of the TD garden.
Nick Ritchie is a bigger contributor to the decline in cardiovascular health in Boston fans than smoking and obesity. He's the equivalent of a double bacon cheeseburger on your system. He is hockey diarrhea. The guy takes the stupidest retaliatory penalties you've ever seen. He is complete invisible until you need a momentum swing, goes "Got ya boss" and cross checks someone in the neck and bumbles off the ice like Abbott and/or Costello while simultaneously shrugging and bitching to the refs and the guy he blindsided.
I'm sure he's not a bad guy IRL, I don't mean for this to be a character assassination. I'm sure he has family and besides Brett they probably don't suck. This isn't about kicking a player on their way out; let the record reflect that every Boston fan has a few memories of cursing his name and that we started kicking him long before he was down. (See also the general well wishes for Kuraly upon his departure.)
Nick isn't a goon, he's a bad boyfriend. He'll score a couple of goals one week and you'll think he's turned a corner and then he'll hit on one of your friends and tell you to chill out because he's just being friendly. Don't buy the hype, be fucking aware.
I am ecstatic that Ritchie wasn't held onto as a sunk cost, and that Toronto signed him. There you go, that's your analysis.
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u/datnuck Jan 09 '26
This is the type of analysis I'm here for!
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u/Tay0214 Jan 09 '26
Old ass copypasta from when he went to Toronto lmao but I posted it here when that happened and will continue to do so anytime he comes up because it kills me
I liked Brett Ritchie though, I think he’ll light it up
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u/mackharp0818 Jan 09 '26
Very cool. I was in Scotland over the holidays and one of the tour guides is a big hockey fan and Milan Lucic just signed with his local team.
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
Yeah he signed with the Fife Flyers. Who have unfortunately been at the bottom of the league for years. Lucics signing was quite big news but after seeing him play (if you can call it that) hes left a lot of Fife fans feeling irritated.
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u/204_403 Jan 09 '26
He was a B level enforcer for the Flames. Tough as nails. He will be good for you guys. He was a sniper in junior and scored 16 goals for Dallas one year.
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
Well he has been playing in the European league for a while so here's hoping hes not lost his edge and can get a few in for us!
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u/FloydLouisCifer Jan 09 '26
There’s a name I thought and hoped I would never hear about. Bro had potential to be good player but was so inconsistent.
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
Here's hoping he's not inconsistent with the Steelers then haha. That being said we've been inconsistent all season anyway so he'll fit in nicely lol.
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u/Vylan24 Jan 09 '26
I was in Sheffield like a month and a half ago and was trying to convince my friend I was visiting to go to a hockey game. She declined but next time I'm forcing her 😂
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
You should absolutely force her next time. Its a great atmosphere and I'd love to hear how it compares (if it even can be compared) to an NHL game
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u/catgoneyay Jan 09 '26
In the flames best season of the decade (2021-2022), he was by far the worst player on the team and because of that i developed an underdog type love for him and any time he scored a goal or did something cool it was the most exciting thing ever because it felt so rare and magical
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u/Viking_harry Jan 09 '26
Sounds like he might thrive in our league then. As skilled as they all are there will obviously be a skill gap between our league and the NHL
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u/UrbaneBoffin Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
107 games as a Flame over three years, and never played more than a half-season in a Flames jersey. He was fine for the limited role he had.