Bob Hartley Announced as Flames Head Coach

The coaching candidate pool in Montreal took a blow today as the Calgary Flames announced that Bob Hartley will be the team's next Head Coach.

Hartley was considered a frontrunner for the Montreal job, though we may never know if GM Marc Bergevin opted for another candidate, or if it was Hartley who turned down the Canadiens interest to join the Flames.  Many fake Twitter insiders took an educated guess that Hartley would be Bergevin's man, announcing it as fact over the internet during the past week, which should be a lesson to many in trusting certain sources.  It seems Hockey Insider 101 has become make a pre-emptive announcement then hope it comes true so you can claim yourself an insider.  If it doesn't, just say your sources were wrong or some parameter changed.  Appears to be a great recipe for gaining followers, but not one this site or Twitter account will ever endorse.

With Hartley out of the equation (and reportedly Patrick Roy out of consideration as well), that leaves Guy Carbonneau, Michel Therrien, and Marc Crawford as the most widely-discussed Montreal coaching candidates.  Other bilingual names mentioned include Martin Raymond and Benoit Groulx, though many hope an unheralded candidate ends up winning out, unimpressed by these names.

Bob McKenzie appears to believe it's down to Therrien and Crawford for the job:

UPDATES: A few tidbits from Hartley's press conference in Calgary this afternoon.

- Yes, he had met with the Canadiens, and had several phone conversations with them.
- When Alex Tanguay was with the Habs, and the team was looking for a coach, Tanguay phoned Hartley (the two had been together in Colorado) to say that he'd appreciate if Bob came to Montreal, as he was the type of coach he needed.
- Hartley had a meeting scheduled with the Canadiens for "later this week," but phoned Marc Bergevin this morning to inform him he'd opted to take a deal with Calgary.  Bergevin was quoted as wishing Hartley good luck, indicating that while they had spoken, he wasn't ready to name a coach just yet.

So from this, we can gather that Hartley was one of Bergevin's final candidates.  It remains to be seen what he'll do now that Hartley is out of the running.