The Flames were the result of the NHL's first preemptive strike against the upstart World Hockey Association. In December 1971, the NHL hastily granted a team to Long Island the New York Islanders in order to keep the WHA's New York Raiders out of the brand new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Needing another team to balance the schedule, the NHL awarded a team to an Atlanta-based group that owned the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks, headed by prominent local real estate developer Tom Cousins. Cousins named the team the "Flames" after the fire resulting from the March to the Sea in the American Civil War by General William Tecumseh Sherman, in which Atlanta was nearly destroyed.
- Excerpt from the Wikipedia

The Flames were the result of the NHL's first preemptive strike against the upstart World Hockey Association. In December 1971, the NHL hastily granted a team to Long Island the New York Islanders in order to keep the WHA's New York Raiders out of the brand new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Needing another team to balance the schedule, the NHL awarded a team to an Atlanta-based group that owned the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks, headed by prominent local real estate developer Tom Cousins. Cousins named the team the "Flames" after the fire resulting from the March to the Sea in the American Civil War by General William Tecumseh Sherman, in which Atlanta was nearly destroyed.
- Excerpt from the Wikipedia