For one Ontario hockey coach and Flames fan, Castagna and Suniev call-ups were special

Growing up in Newfoundland as a diehard fan of the Calgary Flames, David Manning has a few vivid memories that stand out.

The Flames winning the Stanley Cup in 1989 is the big one, and the magical run to Game 7 of the Cup Finals in 2004 is cherished, too.

You can add Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2026 to that list, too. That was the day that Jonathan Castagna and Aydar Suniev both got promoted to NHL duty by the Flames.

It’s not every day that two players you coached get called up to the NHL by the same team … especially when that team is the one you’ve supported your whole life.

“That was a first,” said Manning, the coach at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ont. “We’ve been fortunate and have had 10 years straight of NHL draft picks, but to have two called up to the same team on the same day, that was pretty unique.

“Especially because for (Castagna) and it being his first NHL game and I’m a Flames fan, too. I watch pretty closely and the timing couldn’t be better for two young players to break into the team.”

The journey to the NHL didn’t start at St. Andrew’s College for either Castagna or Suniev, but it was an important stop along the way.

After moving to North America from Russia, Suniev attended the school in 2021-22. That was Castagna’s first year, too, and while the now-21-year-old grew up in nearby Etobicoke, there were still lots of twists and turns on his path to the school.

Remember that this was before the NCAA changed its eligibility rules for CHL players, so for a young man like Castagna, an elite secondary school like St. Andrew’s College was a pipeline for young talent looking to go play college hockey in the U.S.

The challenge for Castagna was that the program didn’t have space for him at the start of his Grade 11 year. It wasn’t until around Thanksgiving when Manning called him up and offered him a place.

It was a life-changing call.

“I’d like to think if I didn’t go there, I wouldn’t be here. It was instrumental in my career,” Castagna said. “Coach Manning was awesome. I owe him a lot. He took a chance on me.

“I went to SAC and that’s where I grew the most, I think, in my career. Offensively, confidence, playing the game the right way and just developing into the player I am today. I owe a lot of that, if not all of it, to Coach Manning.”

By the time Castagna’s Grade 12 season rolled around, he was named as his team’s captain and slowly started crawling up draft boards, eventually getting selected in the third round, 70th overall by the then-Arizona Coyotes in 2023. Earlier this year, he was a key piece in the package the Flames received from the Mammoth in exchange for MacKenzie Weegar.

“His No. 1 attribute as a draft eligible was his engine,” Manning explained. “He never stops and he’s on pucks and has a great motor. At the time, he was a little erratic. He almost played a little recklessly and didn’t have the attention to detail and didn’t take care of the puck like he should have, but a lot of that came down to his work ethic.

“If he was wasteful or sloppy with the puck, he’d just work to get it back again and he kind of got away with it because his motor was so good. We really focused on trying to help him clean up those areas of his game. He was named our captain in Grade 12 and I think that was just a reflection on him being everything a St. Andrew’s student should be. He played lacrosse, he was obviously on our hockey team and he was involved in the arts and on top of that was just an outstanding student.

“Every quarter century, every 25 years, you have a kid that comes along like him.”

And now, Manning gets to watch Castagna and Suniev playing in the NHL with his favourite team. It’s almost too good to be true.

When he found out his two former players had been called up by the Flames and were actually going to play on the same line for a game, he went back and checked his old line charts to see if they’d ever been linemates at SAC.

They never did, but watching the two of them break in together has been an incredible experience for the lifelong Flames fan — right up there with the Cup win in ‘89 and the long nights spent cheering on Jarome Iginla and the ‘04 team as they came oh-so-close.

“That Cup run, I was back living in Newfoundland and that was an amazing experience,” Manning said. “My brothers own a bar, so it turned into two of us watching the games and by the final the bar was packed with 100 people and they were all along for the ride with us.”