Flames fans were relatively well behaved on 17 Avenue following the Flames’ loss to the Canucks on Thursday night and police say they are prepared to patrol the Red Mile and areas around the Saddledome after Game 6 on Saturday.

“We’ve gone through a number of games and each one of them have their own set of challenges that we meet and after every game we’ll do an assessment of what our response is and adjust accordingly,” said CPS Supt. Ray Robitaille

Police say the vast majority of fans are just there to have fun and cheer on their team but there are always a few who behave inappropriately.

“There are some, we charged an individual last night with impaired driving. We have an active investigation in terms of assault with a weapon, that occurred during Game 3 and we have a number of other investigations related to cause a disturbance,” said Robitaille. “But those are a very small number of investigations on the criminal side that we have moving, when we look at the number of people, anywhere from a couple of thousand, on any given night on 17th Avenue, up to, the highest we’ve seen at five to six thousand.”

Calgary police say they are expecting a larger crowd on Saturday night and so they will be joined by RCMP members to monitor activities on the Red Mile.

“We’re preparing for all contingencies that may happen on Saturday,” said Robitaille. “Saturday clearly we’re making some plans that will look at crowds of anywhere from five, probably being the lower limit, and we’re certainly anticipating that we could see 20,000 fans down celebrating at the Saddledome for sure, and the parking lot and various areas.”

Robitaille says the greatest concentration of officers will be on the 17th Avenue corridor and that they will support the celebration but will not tolerate criminal behavior.

“The message to the outliers is, behave respectfully. So some of the things that we have seen happen, people wouldn’t do if they were not drunk for one, and they certainly wouldn’t say some of the comments that we’ve heard circulating around, to their mother, to their sister, to their daughter. Nor would they ever want anyone else to utter those words and I would just suggest that, the same message you’d say to everyone else, treat others as you want to be treated and have fun, but some of those things are not fun,” he said.

Police say they will be supported by bylaw officers and other city services so calls for service from other parts of the city will not be affected.

They have set up a mobile operations centre in the area just in case things get out of hand.

Chants from the crowd of ‘Shirts off for Kiprusoff’ was trending back in 2004 during the Flames run for the cup and this time “Show Your Cans for Monahan” seems to be the slogan for some.

A Calgary group says the trend is leading to increased sexual violence towards women and they want to make sure that festivities are fun for all fans.

The Pussy Cats Consent Awareness Team was out on 17 Avenue S.W. after the game on Thursday night, reminding the male majority that nudity isn’t consent.

“It should be safe in society for women to take their shirts off,” says Stasha Huntingford with the group. “But, at this point, it isn’t so. That’s what I mean about consent. Even if I take my shirt off, people should not assume I want to have sex with them.”

The Calgary YWCA has also stepped up in support of a safer Red Mile.

On its website, the organization is fighting back against sexism during the playoffs on social media with the hastag #SafeRedMile.

The organization says catcalls and sexually aggressive behaviour towards women is particularly disturbing, especially to those who are victims of sexual assault.

“We cannot condone these sorts of sexist, asinine comments (and worse) from overzealous revelers, be it during a spirit-boosting playoff run or in the midst of the Calgary Stampede,” Sue Tomney, CEO of the YWCA wrote.

Game 6 gets underway at 7:00 p.m. in the Dome on Saturday night.