Former Calgary Flames player absolutely rips former coach

PUBLICATION

Josh Tupper
July 29, 2023 (10:07 PM)

SHARE THIS STORY

Most of the time when you hear about rifts between players and coaches in Calgary, it centers around Darryl Sutter. Sutter was fired at the conclusion of last season, reportedly after multiple players refused to play for him again.

However, long-time member of the Calgary Flames Matt Stajan recently had some negative things about his former coach Bob Hartley.

Stajan described Hartley, who coached the team between 2012 to 2016 as a "d**k" who intentionally attempted to divided the room.

"I remember being in the dressing room, and we hashed it out one day as players. The room was divided. [Hartley] had said something in a meeting during video. He attacked six or seven of the bottom-six guys, bottom [defencemen], and we came in and I was like 'that can't happen, our teams divided. He can't treat this half of the room one way, and the other half another way.' I said it to Bob, too, but Bob didn't listen to players.

The Flames made the playoffs only once under Hartley and this probably explains why. However, Hartley did win the Jack Adams trophy as Coach of the Year in 2014-15.

"Everybody started realizing what he was doing. And this is right after we had success the year before. We made the playoffs, we were a good group. Once you could start seeing a little divide, we had that meeting and were like 'we can all hate the coach, we all gotta stay together.' Once we had that hash out in our dressing room, all the guys he was treating well started seeing how he was treating everyone else. Then you really start to see that this guy's a dick."

After being fired Hartley has been unable to secure another NHL job. He did spend a few years in the KHL where had additional issues.