Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
The stories about Hartley are not hearsay. They are statements by people who were there. Hearsay is “someone told me they saw X”. O’Brien, Sarich and Parker are saying “I saw X”.
|
That's the thing with me - I love Sarich. The other two? Not so much.
However, when Parker is complaining that Hartley wanted him to fill a role on the team, but he couldn't, what is Hartley supposed to do? Get Parker to suddenly play a strong 200ft game? Parker was just a goon in the league.
O'Brien - end of his career. Maybe Hartley was ragging on Sven, but it was also a mixture of things with Sven. Feaster was keeping him up on the team to showcase his 'golden boy' pick, but he was useless and disinterested in playing hard, especially in the defensive and neutral zones. I remember getting roasted a bit for noticing and calling it out. I would find it difficult to imagine that Hartley didn't bring this up numerous times, and probably went to far once or twice. Sven was lazy and disinterested. I remember Hartley taking a strip off of Backlund too for not covering for a D-man that was pinching, which led to an odd-man rush.
Sarich - end of his career. The one story that he did share was when he was a healthy scratch for like 10 straight games, so the night before a game he said 'screw it' and went golfing and had a few bears. Hartley found out about it, and inserted him into the lineup, then took him out.
I don't know... to me, these examples aren't very solid. I am sure Hartley is one of the tougher and more demanding coaches out there, and I am sure he has gone too far sometimes as I believe most coaches have. However, at least he isn't Peters being racist and kicking guys in the back, or Crawford kicking guys..
Sarich and O'Brien are definitely going to dislike Hartley more as it was THIS coach that they saw 'ending their careers'.
I don't doubt that Hartley had to go. Coaches like him wear out their welcome sooner or later. Heck, even the players' coaches wear out their welcomes too. That's ok. I personally won't disagree with that decision, and at the end of the day, a GM gets to pick his coach. I said as much after Hartley got fired, and I also said that I thought "the clock" was officially started on Treliving's tenure.
Treliving went on to hire 3 consecutive terrible coaches in a row.
Treliving then spent a lot of draft capital on a rebuilding team.
Treliving spent to the cap every year (and beyond, fixing his poor contracts with buyouts)
And what has he accomplished? Since the Hartley era 2nd round (some call it fluke) season, he has this team winning 3 playoff GAMES IN TOTAL. Not series. Games. In 6 subsequent years, with a team that looks like it is trending down quickly and in need of a rebuild.
Does anybody here still trust 'the process'? Anybody here think that Treliving has been doing a good job. I used to rationalize a lot of his mistakes. I still 'believed' in this team.
For me, he took over a team that showed promise, but needed a lot of work.
It became a paper tiger at its' peak - 2nd overall in the NHL, but went out like a whimper in the playoffs.
Unlike the other team that year that got embarrassed, the Flames never showed themselves to be a good team since. The other team that was embarrassed has since won a cup and is categorically a top team.
Now, we can only hope that the incoming retool will change the fortunes around, but I would bet this team probably needs to be rebuilt.
Oh how I long for the days of 'unsustainability', an exciting 'never say die' team, a playoff round win, and a tonne of promise.
Now they Flames are the exact opposite. Sustainable hockey, a team that rolls over and plays dead at the first hint of trouble, not even a playoff team, and very little to hope for.