With the puck dropping on yet another NHL season, and with the hometown Calgary Flames celebrating the franchise’s 30th anniversary, it seems fitting that one of the main centres for fans to revel in their long-serving devotion to the team is housed in a building that has been entertaining audiences of all sorts since the days of prohibition.

The Palace Theatre was officially opened on Oct. 21, 1921. Constructed during the heyday of vaudeville and before “talking pictures” became the norm, The Palace rivaled anything seen in the movie houses of Los Angeles or New York, boasting marble stairs, mahogany doors, and elaborately decorated ceilings, along with a cavernous seating capacity of 1,951 audience members.

“We get people all the time who walk in here [and say] ‘Oh, I remember coming here to see a movie when I was 10-years old,” says Geoff Gobert, sales manager for Flames Central, the sports bar/concert hall/restaurant that moved into The Palace in April 2007. “Well that might have been 50 years ago, but people still can come here and see some of the guts of the building and remember some aspects of it, but at the same time there’s all the TVs and the bars are built up and obviously all the Flames stuff too.”

For those who haven’t had the pleasure (or sensory overload) of stepping into the cavernous Flames Central, it’s safe to say that renowned architect C. Howard Crane had such things in mind when he designed the building.

Known for his many outstanding designs across North America, including the United Artists Theatre in Los Angeles and the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Crane’s design would use re-enforced concrete, steel and brick, with marble, and tile to create the very same exterior that visitors see today, save for the giant video screen which has been added to the building’s substantial marquee.

Before receiving another lease on life when the Calgary Flames and the Concorde Entertainment Group partnered up to start Flames Central and the Wildfire Grill, The Palace had played many roles during the nearly 90 years since its construction.

Back when it first opened, instead of hosting the likes of Collective Soul, Armin Van Buuren and serving as quite possibly the best place in the city (save for the Saddledome) to watch Jarome Iginla and the rest of the Flames do their thing, the Palace Theater saw the likes of Nelson Eddy, Ethel Barrymore, Victor Borge and Lena Horne ply their trade onstage.

In a twist befitting of the building’s transformation from a grand old theatre into a modern haven for sports fanatics, radio station CFAC—the city’s only all-sports station The FAN 960—began its life in the confines of the old theatre. Following the decline of vaudeville in the late 1920s, The Palace was taken over by the Famous Players Corporation, and would spend the next 60 years as a home for first run films.

One of the earliest films to be shown at The Palace was His Destiny, a locally filmed western that blatantly heralded the appeal of the Calgary Stampede. The promotional aspect of the film comes as little surprise given the cast, which included none other than Stampede founder (and former vaudeville performer) Guy Weadick. Many years later, a far different film, William Friedken’s The Exorcist, would set the house record for opening day crowds, grossing over $10,000.

Today, the silver screen of old has been replaced with a state of the art entertainment set-up that is unrivalled in North America, including the Flames Central virtual arena, which features 150 high-definition screens, a “ring of fire” display reminiscent of the one that wraps around the Pengrowth Saddledome, and a 30-foot projection screen.

However, the venue is not only a place for sports fans to fuel their undying devotion for the franchise of their choice, as the theatre has also returned to its roots as a host of live entertainment. With a capacity of just under 1,400 for concerts and other live events, Flames Central has hosted names like Norm Macdonald, Hawksley Workman, and Blue Rodeo.

Turning the old theatre into the venue that sports and music fans enjoy today entailed some serious work, as the building had last seen service as a nightclub, known simply as The Palace, which closed it doors in 2004 after six years of operation. Prior to that, the theatre had sat vacant for nearly a decade, although the building was used as a set in the 1994 film Legends of the Fall.

And it is that theatrical background that Gobert says Flames Central tried to restore during the extensive renovation that took place in the months before Flames Central opened its doors.

“The building is almost 90-years-old, so part of the extensive renovation to turn it into Flames Central from the empty building that it was involved a lot restoration to bring back a bit of the feel of the theatre used to be like.”

Along with the Theatre Junction Grand, which was built in 1912 and re-opened as a venue for live entertainment in 2006, Flames Central makes up another of the local theatres that have found new life as venues for live entertainment, a sorely needed development that has allowed historic buildings to be experienced by a whole new generation of patrons.