How Well Do You Know Your Coach?

Flames GM was on the hot-seat last week, until he made the decision to relieve Bill Peters of his coaching duties with the Calgary Flames and now we are hearing of more coaches on the hotseat.

First before we get to the reasons why, let’s begin to ask why it took so long for this to come out in the open regarding the comments from the 30 year-old Nigerian-born player Akim Aliu?

Let’s be honest and mention that we certainly can’t be surprised that this form of comment comes from a coach at any level of the game.

If you reflect to minor hockey players, more at the AAA Minor hockey or Junior level you can suspect this to come from a coach and realistically speaking the player or his parents won’t say anything.

Why – well the reason is simple, if they do make any “waves” chances are their Son could be cut from the team and the reason given could be a variety or reasons.

We are talking about pro players that are making “tons” of money playing a sport numerous others would love to play, but the’re not and in today’s world we certainly can’t be surprised that this happened, but one wouldn’t expect it to happen at the NHL level of the game.

I watched and listened to the event unfold over the past week as well as listened to reporters on National TV feel that  Flames GM Brad Treliving took the easy way out, by allowing Bill Peters to step down or resign, with no further explanation.

Anyone that thinks this was easy for Treliving to go through over the past week has to be living under a rock – oh wait that might not be the correct terminology in today’s world?

The Flames as well as the NHL investigated allegations that Peters directed racial slurs at a player 10 years ago when both individuals were in the minors.

Flames GM, Brad Treliving apologized for not having many definitive answers at a practice (Tuesday) in Buffalo, which was the day before the Flames took on the Sabres.

He (Peters) was not at the arena during the team skate to which Treliving mentioned GM “he had stayed at the team’s hotel” that saw Geoff Ward Flames Associate Coach run the practice as well as a “so-called” meeting at centre ice with the players.

Treliving told the media “He understands the seriousness of the allegations and called them “repugnant” if true, while adding it’s his responsibility to find out exactly what happened and this is a subject matter that has no place in our organization.”

It was late Tuesday that Treliving released a statement saying “Our review into the allegations from last evening continues and this is a very serious matter and we want to be thorough in our review.”

He went on to mention that Peters would not be behind the bench for the Flames game Wednesday in Buffalo and the Head Coaching duties would be handled by Geoff Ward. 

As one might expect these allegations come days after issues that revolve around the November 20th issue with Babcock and the Leafs.

It seems ironic that Peters served as an Assistant for Babcock for two seasons in the late ’90’s with the Spokane Chiefs of the WHL.

Peters became the Head Coach with Rockford (2008-09) and spent three seasons with the IceHogs then rejoined Babcock with the Red Wings in 2011 as an Assistant.

Aliu was drafted from the OHL, 56th overall in 2007 and never really had an illustrious career that saw him play 14 games (2018- 2019) for the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL 

He also played 48 games with the AHL Rockford IceHogs (2009-10) under Peters plus 13 additional games with the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL.

The IceHogs are the AHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks who had Stan Bowman as the GM and John McDonough as Blackhawks President.

In one of a few tweets from Aliu he mentioned “Not very surprising the things we’re hearing about Babcock. Apple doesn’t fall far from the Tree, same sort of deal with his protege in YYC. Dropped the N bomb several times towards me in the dressing room in my rookie year because he didn’t like my choice of music.”

Aliu went on to say “First one to admit I rebelled against him and wouldn’t you? Instead of remedying the situation, he wrote a letter to John McDonough and Stan Bowman to have me sent down to the ECHL. 20 year old on pace for 20 goals in his first pro year with zero PP/PK time was off to a great start in his Pro career.”

Aliu has only played seven career NHL games with the Flames between 2011 and 2013 and the rest is history.