Bob Hartley, a longtime head coach in the NHL who won a Stanley Cup championship and a Jack Adams Award, announced his retirement from coaching today. Hartley coached Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the KHL to a Gagarin Cup title earlier this week.
The announcement concludes a coaching career that began all the way back in the late 1980s. Hartley got his start in junior hockey, coaching the CJHL’s Hawkesbury Hawks. He coached the team to back-to-back titles in 1990 and 1991, achievements that landed him a role coaching in the QMJHL for the Laval Titan. In two seasons in Laval, Hartley went 81-52-7, winning a league championship in his second season in his role.
After winning a title with Laval, Hartley continued to climb the coaching ladder, taking an assistant coaching job in the AHL with the Cornwall Aces, on the staff of future Jack Adams winner Jacques Martin. Martin left for an NHL role with the Quebec Nordiques after just a year, leaving Hartley as head coach of the Aces.
He won division titles in each of his two years as head coach in Cornwall. The Aces were at the time the affiliate of the Nordiques, who in 1995 relocated to Colorado. The Avalanche let Cornwall go dormant, and switched their hockey operations personnel, including players and coaches, to the Hershey Bears. Hartley won a Calder Cup title in his first season as head coach of the Bears, in 1996-97.
Hartley’s Calder Cup win put him on the path to becoming a future NHL head coach, and he didn’t have to wait too long to get his chance. In 1998, Avalanche head coach Marc Crawford resigned after his team fell in the first round of the playoffs, just two seasons removed from leading the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup. The Avalanche elevated Hartley to the position of head coach, and was an instant success. In his first two campaigns on the job, Hartley defeated Scotty Bowman’s Detroit Red Wings in back-to-back playoffs, but fell to the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Final in both years.
In his third season, Hartley’s Avalanche won 52 games and won the Stanley Cup, delivering a long-awaited championship to legendary defenseman Ray Bourque. The following year, in 2002, Hartley’s Avalanche fell to the Red Wings in the Western Conference Final. Hartley was fired after 31 games in 2002-03, but didn’t wait long for another job. He was hired by the Atlanta Thrashers that same season. While he had inherited a team capable of contending for Stanley Cups in Colorado, Hartley was dealt the opposite hand in Atlanta, joining a franchise that averaged under 20 wins in its first three seasons.
Hartley was able to make his mark in Atlanta. He guided the franchise through serious off-ice adversity, and under his leadership, the Thrashers entered their strongest period in franchise history. Hartley’s 2006-07 team was the only Thrashers team to reach the playoffs, winning a Southeast Division title with a 43-28-11 record. The following year, he was fired by Atlanta after an 0-6-0 start to their 2007-08 season.
Hartley spent 2011-12 in Switzerland coaching the ZSC Lions, and he had a successful tenure there, winning a National League title. That helped pave the way for what would be Hartley’s final head coaching role in the NHL – a job with the Calgary Flames. Hartley missed the playoffs in three of his four seasons in Calgary, but his 2014-15 campaign stands out as he went 45-30-7 and won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year. A year later, he was let go by the Flames. From 2016-17 through 2020-21, Hartley was head coach of Latvia’s national team.
In 2018-19, Hartley became a head coach in the KHL for the first time, and in his time coaching both Avangard Omsk and Lokomotiv, he has been to three Gagarin Cup finals and won the trophy twice. We at PHR would like to extend our best wishes to Hartley in his retirement and congratulate him on an exceptional coaching career.
Photos courtesy of Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports