Bob Hartley: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

No one on the Flames roster or coaching staff took more heat on social media than Bob Hartley. If you've been on Twitter throughout the 2015-2016 season you've probably come across #FireHartley. From the beginning of the hashtag I haven't been on board with it. There's only so much of the stuff that went wrong this year on the coaching. The defence was shoddy at the best of times and the goaltending seemed nonexistent at the start of the season.

No matter what side of Hartleys future you stand on, whether you want him gone or want him behind the bench for a 5th season, you deny that Hartley wins wherever he goes. Well with the exception being Atlanta but that's just a given with the success they had there. The fact they're no longer in Atlanta speaks volumes on how successful that franchise was. In 4 seasons in Atlanta, the team made the playoffs once (won the division and were swept in the first round). The year after making the playoffs, the team started 0-6 and Hartley was sent packing.

Before Atlanta he was in Colorado for 4 seasons, where the team won the division in every single year and also made it to the conference finals every year. The team never won less than 42 games and won the cup in 2000-01. To be perfectly honest, I'm a huge fan of Hartley but I could've coached the early 90's, early 00's Colorado Avalanche to successful years on a regular basis. Colorado let Hartley go 31 games into the 02-03 season with a 10-8-9-4 record.

Bob went to Switzerland in 2011 and coached the ZSC Lions to Swiss League Championship in his only year there.

Calgary has had Hartley behind the bench for 4 seasons now and the team has looked the most promising for as long as I can remember. After that brawl in Vancouver in the 13-14 season the team has had a new identity and that really sparked what this team is all about.....truculence. (Burke would be proud)  Two of the last three seasons the team finished with an identical 35-40-7 record, not the greatest considering the high expectations coming into this season after making the playoffs last year.

Bob Hartley has the talent there to make this team more successful with a deep lineup and an even deeper system. Give this team time and Bob time to get this ship corrected and I think this team with have nothing but success moving forward. The team this year has some big new additions (Frolik and Hamilton) who took some time to gel with the new team, new system and new roles. We've got a winning coach, why would we want to venture somewhere else and find someone who maybe doesn't have the experience or the respect Hartley does by being winner.

I'd like to hear what you guys think about this. Vote on the poll, comment on Facebook and on Twitter.

*All stats and information generated was taken from Wikipedia*