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[Calgary Flames]

Wranglers add assistant coach David Liffiton to coaching staff

The Calgary Wranglers have added a new face to their coaching staff for the 2025-26 season.

Well, okay, it’s not an entirely new face. Joining the Wranglers as an assistant coach is David Liffiton, most recently an assistant coach for the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen, who share a home building with the Wranglers.

The 40-year-old Liffiton is entering his fifth season as a coach after a pretty interesting playing career. A blueliner by trade, he played in the Ontario Hockey League with the Plymouth Whalers and was selected in the second round of the 2003 NHL Draft by Colorado.

Nine months after being drafted, he was traded to the New York Rangers as part of a trade that sent Matthew Barnaby to Colorado. He went pro with the Rangers organization, ultimately playing 14 seasons of pro hockey in a lot of different leagues.

Here’s Liffiton’s pro career at a glance:

• 7 NHL games with the NY Rangers and Colorado
• 339 AHL games with Hartford, Syracuse and Lake Erie
• 16 ECHL games with Charlotte
• Two seasons in Denmark, with EfB Ishockey and the Frederiksvahn White Hawks
• One season in Italy with Milano Rossoblu
• Half a season in the Swedish Hockey League with Farjestads BK
• A season and a half in HockeyAllsvenskan with the Malmo RedHawks
• One season in Austria’s EBEL with HC Innsbruck

Liffiton began assistant coaching high-level hockey in 2020, and he’s racked up a year of U18 coaching with the North Island Silvertips U18 AAA, two seasons of BCHL coaching with the Nanaimo Clippers, and last season with the Hitmen.

Liffiton’s move to the pros from the Hitmen continues a pretty impressive trend of internal promotions within Calgary’s hockey clubs. In addition to Liffiton, in recent memory we’ve seen goalie coach Jason LaBarbera, skills consultant Matt Stajan, video analyst Connor Rankin, PR/team services Rees Giacchetta and athletic therapist Nathan Hollinger make the jump to the Flames or Wranglers staffs from the Hitmen. The Hitmen have been a pretty good spot to develop and promote up-and-coming hockey talent from.

The Wranglers coaching staff for the coming season will consist of head coach Brett Sutter, assistants Joe Cirella and David Liffiton, goalie development coach MacKenzie Skapski and video coach Chandler Biggar. Aside from Cirella, it’s a pretty youthful group coaching what could potentially be a pretty youthful AHL lineup. It should be a lot of fun.

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Source: https://flamesnation.ca/news/wranglers-add-assistant-coach-david-liffiton-to-coaching-staff

 

[Calgary Flames]

Streaming Flames games will cost more in 2025-26 due to Sportsnet+ price hike

If you’re a Calgary Flames fan hoping to stream games in 2025-26, it’s gonna cost you a bit more than it used to.

On Thursday, Sportsnet announced price increases for its Sportsnet+ streaming platform starting Sept. 9, 2025 (prices do not include taxes):

• For the Standard yearly package, the price has increased from $199.99 to $249.99, an increase of $50.00.
• For the Premium yearly package, the price has increased from $249.99 to $324.99, an increase of $75.00.
• For the Standard monthly package, the price has increased from $24.99 to $29.99, an increase of $5.00.
• For the Premium monthly package, the price has increased from $34.99 to $42.99, an increase of $8.00.

For cord-cutting Flames fans, the Standard package has been sufficient to watch regional and national broadcasts for those living in the local Calgary area. However, for out-of-market fans in other parts of Canada hoping to keep up with the red team, the Premium package has been a requirement. Both options are getting much pricier. (And this excludes anyone that wants to watch any TSN or Amazon broadcasts…)

This Sportsnet+ price hike continues a frustrating trend for fans, who have seen prices steadily climb up for the service. Sportsnet+ originally launched as Sportsnet NOW in 2016 as an online streaming platform for Sportsnet programming – essentially replicating the TV broadcast experience online for existing subscribers on the go, or those who had cut the cord but still wanted a reliable way to get their sports fix. A few years later, Sportsnet+ essentially replaced the NHL.TV service as the streaming home for all NHL games in Canada.

That would have been great, except the service has been a source of frustration for hockey fans for awhile. (When you try to Google “Sportsnet Plus,” the majority of the search engine’s fill-in suggestions for your search are references to the service not working properly.)

Some fans have had issues getting the service to recognize their IP address, resulting in (for example) Calgary fans trying to watch Flames games while in Calgary but being told they’re located outside the broadcast region. Or the service’s app crashing randomly. Or merely the service buffering perpetually when trying to stream video.

Based on online sentiment, and conversations with fans, the reaction from hockey fans looking for a reliable, safe place to stream hockey games when faced with Sportsnet+ price hikes in the past has been “Okay, sure, as long as the service works.” The persistent unreliability of an increasingly expensive platform has been a big challenge for fans just trying to watch their team.

Let’s see if this season, in the face of another price hike, if Sportsnet+ takes a big step forward.

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Source: https://flamesnation.ca/news/stream...t-more-in-2025-26-due-to-sportsnet-price-hike