Shane O'Brien blasts former Calgary Flames coach Bob Hartley

Shane O’Brien is no fan of former Calgary Flames head coach Bob Hartley.

Hartley, who continues to coach overseas, served as the head coach of the Flames for four seasons from 2012 to 2016. During that time, he received a Jack Adams Award following a surprisingly successful 2014-15 season, but was fired after the 2015-16 campaign had commenced.

Though Hartley’s firing had seemed premature given the amount of success the Flames had under him in 2014-15, several former players have since spoken of their dislike for the 65-year-old. O’Brien himself, who played under Hartley with the Flames in 2013-14, has called out his former coach in the past and had some more fiery comments about him in a recent appearance on Live From Moose Jaw.

Co-host Lindy McLeod served up a hilarious question to O’Brien, asking him who he would rather punch in the face between two of his former NHL head coaches, Hartley and Alain Vigneault. For O’Brien, it was an easy answer.

“Easy answer. Bob Hartley,” O’Brien said. “If he walked into Moose Jaw right now, we’d have to stop the interview because I’d probably go out there and grab him.

“Bob Hartley was just a bad guy. … NHL coaches, they have the right to not play me and whatever they want, but when you start going after a person’s character and stuff like that, that’s what I had a problem with.”

O’Brien, like many past players of Hartley, spoke about how the longtime NHL bench boss was very disrespectful in his treatment toward many, and how he seemed to want to create tension and division within the dressing room.

Part of the hatred from O’Brien’s end may come from the fact that he appeared in just 45 games with the Flames under Hartley, while also suiting up for 31 AHL games that same season with the Abbotsford Heat. It marked the left-shot defenceman’s first time in the AHL in eight seasons.

The following season, in 2014-15, saw O’Brien play a brief stint with the Florida Panthers, with one of his games coincidentally coming against the Flames at the Saddledome. The Panthers came out on top, and O’Brien explained how Hartley made sure to avoid him postgame.

“I’ll never forget, I got called back up in Florida and we were playing Calgary, and we beat them,” O’Brien said. “I was walking out of the Saddledome and [Hartley] was coming this way. I was like, ‘Here’s my chance, I can’t wait.’ The f*cking gutless [guy], as soon as he saw me, he just ducked in the room that way. I was like, ‘What a p*ssy.'”

That stint with the Panthers was the final time O’Brien saw the NHL, wrapping up what was a 537-game NHL career. He spent the entire 2015-16 campaign in the AHL and an additional two seasons overseas before retiring from professional hockey.

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