"I wanted to help Yaroslavl in memory of the team that died in 2011"

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl's hockey players won the Gagarin Cup for the second year in a row, although many doubted their success before the season. After the championship season, head coach Igor Nikitin left the team to join CSKA, but club president Yuri Yakovlev managed to convince Canadian Bob Hartley to return to the KHL.

The winner of the Stanley Cup with Colorado and the Gagarin Cup with Avangard did not work for three years after leaving Omsk and announced his retirement. However, Hartley accepted the offer from Lokomotiv, explaining his decision with the memory of his friend and former assistant Brad McCrimmon, the head coach of Yaroslavl, who died with the team in a plane crash on September 7, 2011.

In an interview with Izvestia, Hartley spoke about returning to Russia, recalled McCrimmon, appreciated Nikitin's contribution to the success of Lokomotiv and explained why he was now truly ending his coaching career.

— What emotions did you feel after winning the decisive match of the final?

— Incredible feelings. Even when the score became 3-0 in our favor, we still understood that Kazan never gives up until the very end. The result was 3-2, and the last few minutes of the third period were very nervous. We didn't score into an empty net, but Ak Bars started pushing and pushing until the very last second. God, I was so happy when I heard the siren announcing the end of the third period (smiles).

— Is this a special championship for you?

— Yes, of course. Every championship, every Cup is special. Every victory is a different story. But what we have done here at Lokomotiv is something special. I've never hosted a winning team that just won a trophy. It was a new challenge for me. When any coach joins a new team, he wants to make the result no worse or even better than it was before.

And in the case of Lokomotiv, I had only one option — to repeat last year's triumph, which the team had with Igor Nikitin. And, of course, this year in Yaroslavl was special for me, because I wanted to help Lokomotiv and its president Yuri Yakovlev in memory of my friend Brad McCrimmon and the entire team that died 15 years ago.

— Can we say that we have fulfilled our mission?

- yes. Brad and I worked together, he was my assistant at Atlanta and he really wanted to try his hand at independent work at a high level. It's difficult to get into such a job in the NHL right away — there are a lot of applicants for it. Therefore, the offer from Lokomotiv was a chance for him. He signed a contract with Yaroslavl at the same time as I started working in Zurich. When they came to Switzerland for training camp, Brad and I met and talked. We discussed his new team, which Yakovlev had assembled. Brad said they were great guys and that they could play in his system. McCrimmon played fast, aggressive hockey, and paid a lot of attention to discipline. And he told me that the Lokomotiv players are fine with it. It is no coincidence that they did not concede a single goal at the pre-season tournament in Riga. It could have been one of the most disciplined teams in the history of the KHL.

On the sleepers again: Lokomotiv won the Gagarin Cup for the second year in a row

Yaroslavl won the sixth match of the finals against Ak Bars and defended the championship title.

— What did you feel when you learned about the tragedy?

— It's still one of the worst days of my life. It happened on September 7th, my birthday. But that's not even the point. I lost my friend. This day and the memory of it are something special to me now. As well as the memory of all the guys who died in that plane crash.

— Did you visit the memorial in memory of the lost team in Yaroslavl during the year?

— Yes, of course. I have visited and will visit again. As well as the place of the tragedy. These places mean a lot to me.

— You have said more than once that the memory of McCrimmon and his team influenced the decision to terminate his retirement. Nevertheless, it was only the fourth time that you accepted Yakovlev's offer. How did he convince you?

"I accepted this challenge to honor the memory of Brad McCrimmon, one of my best friends. At the same time, coaching a team that has just become a champion is a challenge.

— Does it bother you that after your victory, many people still remember Igor Nikitin?

— Igor has done a fantastic job during his four years at Lokomotiv. He created a real winning team, a team with character. And a family team. I was well aware that my task was not to break what my predecessor had done, but to carefully add my own. I think we did it. We have taken another step forward.

I am very glad that I have worked in this team with such guys as Alexander Radulov, Maxim Shalunov, Egor Surin, Daniil Isaev and many others, including numerous young people. This is a team with character that always fights to the end and believes in victory. Something might not work out for us during the season, but we tried to be on the ice at the maximum all the time and not give up. And you could see it in the series with Avangard in the semifinals, when we were on the verge of relegation, but we used the slightest chance to escape and turned the confrontation around.

— Now there's definitely no chance that you'll continue to train?

— Definitely not. I already made this decision in 2022, when I left Avangard. And I sincerely said that I wanted to take care of my family, to be more with my wife, children and grandchildren. I'm 65 years old now — it's time to finish. It was only Yakovlev's gift of persuasion and the memory of Brad that made me change my mind. But I've said from the beginning that I'm only coming back for a year. And now nothing has changed. I'm happy that this year turned out like this.