Why Calgary, you ask?
 

Bob Hartley chose Calgary over Montreal. Why? He is francophone, is he not?

Simple.

Calgary has:

Jarome Iginla, good-natured veteran leader with an easy going personality who just wants to wind down his career.

Jay Bouwmeester, a quiet guy who keeps to himself and stays out of trouble

Miikka Kiprusoff, a veteran who stays out of the spotlight and who will probably be gone within two years.



Montreal has:

P.K. Subban, who gets into fights every several practices

Carey Price, who is the golden boy of this team for the next decade. Three years from now, if Montreal is losing like crazy and it becomes a "either the coach goes of the goalie goes" situation, then the coach is gone.



Which situation offers more job security, less stress and less hassle? Bingo. You have your answer.



For what it's worth, I'm a huge Subban fan, and I like Price a lot as well. I'm just trying to see it from Hartley's standpoint.

The atmosphere is less of a circus in Calgary too. People love hockey in Calgary, but in Montreal there could be an article written about a player switching from Cheerios to Cornflakes.

How about Calgary has Jay Feaster?

Feaster - the GM of the Hershey Bears the year they won the Calder Cup with Hartley as Coach.

And Hartley is the Godfather of Feaster's son.

Can't say that wouldn't have an impact ;)

I think Hartley chose Calgary because he had the job and he's very close to Jay Feaster. What Hartley will desire, Feaster will do it.

In Montreal, he was in the process and he wasn't the number 1 candidate.

Imagine he waits for Montreal and Calgary decides an other coach and afterwards Montreal selects someone else. Hartley would have been screwed.

Hartley wanted to be back in the NHL.

The rumour in Montreal is Hartley had a special clause in his contract with the Zurich Lions. He could go back with two NHL teams: Calgary and Quebec. I don't believe it, but the media in Quebec is all over it. Hartley is very close to the Peladeau family that wants to bring the Nordiques back in Quebec City.

Well said.
For a veteran coach, having veteran players is a big plus.
Nobody wants to deal with headaches when they are 50+.

Iginla/Bouw/Kipper isn't too far off the types that Sakic/Blake/Roy were.
(Well, perhaps Roy was a bit of a special case... but two francs in a place distant from MTL probably had good things to talk about)

Subban/Price is probably all too familar of Kovalchuk/Lehtonen.
An uncoachable primadona and a young cornerstone goalie.

For Hartley, been there, done that.

How about the benchmark is low and there's no pressure or expectations in Calgary. The fans have accepted that some things will never change, and I know Jay Feaster is ok with too.

With all due respect, your starting premise is pure speculation. (Unless you know something the rest of us don't.)

So this is basically speculating on a speculation.

Think Hartley was a fan of drafting a player who is 6-10 years away from the NHL??

I wish I knew how to provide links, but the reports are that Hartley informed Montreal that he would sign with Calgary. Therefore he made the choice, you can just Google it if you'd like to see.