From one captain to another …

Axel Hurtig’s phone blew up late last week as word spread that the Flames’ blue-line prospect had been named captain of the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen.

As the notifications piled up, one message was particularly meaningful.

“I got a text from Mikael Backlund, which was pretty cool,” Hurtig relayed to Postmedia. “That’s a guy I’m trying to look up to, the things he does every day.

“He just said, ‘Congratulations. Keep on working.’ It was a special moment, for sure, because he doesn’t need to do that. He goes out of his way to send me a text, so that was awesome.”

These two Swedes know each other just a little from training-camp practices, off-season workouts with the Flames’ strength coaches and from when they happen to see each other on locker

See Full Page