After securing the League and Cup double during the 2011-2012 campaign, the Flames entered the new season looking for more of the same. The problem with that objective, historically speaking in the context of the Flames, is that entering this season the club had never, not even once, retained a trophy from one season to the next. If a couple decades of history repeated itself, not to mention the relative elusiveness of the playoff crown, one might have leaned towards the club being completely shutout of the silverware haul. With the success of the previous season, few changes were made to the roster that also advanced to the playoff semi-final the year prior, missing a spot in the championship game by just a single goal. Matt Towe headed off to Belfast while Greg Chambers made his way not far down the road to Basingstoke Bison. The only off season signing was a retuning player of sorts with the re-acquisition of defenceman Ricky Skene who had last iced with the club during the 2009-2010 set. The club later added some depth with the signing of Dean Holland in late November, but still, if nothing else, team familiarity was not going to be a factor in any continued run of relinquishing a trophy the year after it was secured.
If the first 4 league games of the season were anything to go by, the historical trophy pattern was going to change with Spectrum’s tenants jumping out to a 4 win and 0 loss start to keep pace with the Basingstoke Bison who spent most of the season’s first half in the penthouse spot. However, if the next 5 league games of the season were anything to go by, the more things changed the more they were going to stay the same with the Flames dropping all 5 of those contests, sitting under .500 halfway through October. Another run of 4 wins in a row followed by 3 defeats on the bounce perhaps had people wondering about the reigning league champions’ ability to be anything more than a top half table side; perhaps even concern about the club being on the outside looking in as far as a Cup semi-final slot was concerned. A 3-2 win on home ice against Basingstoke on Remembrance Sunday to snap the 3 game skid may not have done too much to make believers out of most. That likely changed, however, with 9 more wins to follow that kicked off an 18 win in 20 start run, including a 6 game win streak across a historically result challenged Christmas-New Year break, that had the club in first place by early January. By then the club appeared locked tight in ‘don’t look back’ mode, and they did not again lose back to back games until taking an 8 point title race lead with 7 games to play. The team’s first repeat league title was all but wrapped up; a formality that was finalised on the evening of March 16th with a point during an overtime defeat at Sheffield Steeldogs. After waiting 20 or so years to achieve back to back trophy success, it was less than 100 hours before they did it again. Heading to Leg 2 of the Cup final with a 4-2 lead against Slough Jets, the Flames returned home to deliver a 5-3 win, 9-4 on aggregate, while securing the ‘double, double’ as League and Cup winners in back to back terms.
In the post season, like the season prior, the Flames advanced to the Playoff finals weekend by despatching Peterborough Phantoms in the quarter final elimination series. Unlike the season prior, the Flames retained hope of a rare Treble by the time the semi-final was in the books thanks in part to a late Nathan Rempel goal that helped the Flames past Milton Keynes by a 3-2 count, leaving the double winners just 60 minutes from a clean sweep trophy season. Unfortunately, for supporters of Surrey’s side, a rather skilled Manchester Phoenix outfit did not receive their copy of the script. They proceeded to take a 3-0 lead through 40 minutes of the final before sticking even the rest of the way to secure their playoff aspirations with a 5-2 win while at the same time bursting the Flames Treble bubble.
