Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
It’s totally fair game to want to understand what Treliving knew of Peters’ reputation before hiring him. To me that doesn’t make Treliving in any way complicit with a racist.
What does anyone here think was common knowledge in hockey circles about Peters? Does anyone really think the public flagellation or Lack was atypical of how he behaved behind closed doors? He had a great explanation for the media on that one but the question simply is, how well did Treliving know the man he was hiring? And did he do enough work and/or prioritize the right qualities when hiring him?
As I said I’m not making any judgments of Treliving here. Other than I’m skeptical about his ability to hire the teams’ head coach simply based on who he has hired.
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I think the disconnect is the assumption being made is if the Flames / Treliving knew about the type of coach Peter's is, the racism aside, that they wouldn't have hired him.
I'm going to guess, that the bullying that is being talked about now, or at least a fairly large % of it was known to the Flames when they hired him. I'm going to guess, it's also not unique to Peter's and is fairly common still in the NHL and hockey. We already know Babcock is in this boat, there was no shortage of Bob Hartley bully stories floating around (I smell chocolate) and we even have an image somewhere in here showing a current successful NHL coach punching a player in the helmet. I'm going to wager that his reputation was not anything the hockey world would find alarming (again only referring to the bullying) and was actually at least in part what BT was looking for when he hired a "hard nose coach" to replace the "players coach" this team totally shat the bed for.
I think it's also worth flagging, that Babcock was not fired because he was a bully, he was fired because he was losing, same with Bob Hartley when we let him go. If Peter's is let go later today or tomorrow it also won't be because he was a bully, it will be because they verified accounts of him being a racist.
Anyway, all this talk of did the BT or the Flames know is silly. If they knew about the racism...........then I'm very disappointed and others need to be held accountable also. As for the other stuff, I'd say it's safe to say the Flames new about at least some of his tactics.....tactics that have likely been quite acceptable for a long time in hockey.
Doesn't mean that we have to accept that moving forward, time for change, but I also don't think the Flames need to be drug to the mat for the decision to hire a hard nose coach, other than the fact that hiring one may not drive the on ice performance you'd like it to anymore in today's NHL.