LATEST | Former Flames forward says this head coach divided the locker room

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Cooper Godin
July 30, 2023 (11:52)

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Former National Hockey League forward Matt Stajan spent parts of nine seasons with the Calgary Flames after joining them from the Toronto Maple Leafs via trade in January 2010.

Stajan has played under six head coaches during his NHL career, and on a recent appearance on the Barn Burner Podcast, he revealed that during his time in Calgary, Bob Hartley was a "dick" and divided the locker 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." Stajan said.

He went on to add, "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."

Hartley was the bench boss in Calgary for four of Stajan's seasons there before being fired by the organization in May 2016, less than one year after winning the Jack Adams Award as the league's best head coach during the 2014-15 season.

He hasn't returned to the NHL after being fired by the Calgary Flames. Since his firing, he's spent time with the Latvian men's national team and Kontinental Hockey League club Avangard Omsk.