- Bob Hartley retires after coaching Lokomotiv Yaroslavl to the 2026 Gagarin Cup
- First Canadian coach to win two Gagarin Cups, on top of a 2001 Stanley Cup and 2015 Jack Adams
- Read below for the full career rundown, his blunt parting quote and Game 6 video
Bob Hartley is done.
The 65-year-old Canadian called it a career Thursday after coaching Lokomotiv Yaroslavl past Ak Bars Kazan in six games to win the 2026 Gagarin Cup. He didn’t dress it up afterward:
“I am finished. I am tired. I am going home. I am old,” Hartley said.
That’s the Stanley Cup-winning, Jack Adams-winning, two-time Gagarin Cup-winning coach hanging it up at 65. He’s also the first Canadian ever to lift the KHL trophy twice.
Lokomotiv clinched it Thursday in Kazan on a 3-2 Game 6 win to take the series 4-2. Teenager Yegor Surin scored twice in the first period, Maxim Shalunov added a third in the third, then Ak Bars made it interesting with two late goals before Lokomotiv closed it out.
Here’s how the KHL marked the moment:
His trophy case is wild. Two Gagarin Cups (Avangard 2021, Lokomotiv 2026), a Stanley Cup with Ray Bourque’s Avalanche in 2001, the 2015 Jack Adams Award in Calgary, a Calder Cup with the AHL’s Hershey Bears in 1997, a QMJHL championship in Laval and a Swiss National League title with the ZSC Lions in 2012.
Few coaches in any league have hardware like that.
Hartley’s NHL career started behind the Avalanche bench in 1998, when Marc Crawford resigned. He went to four straight Western Conference Finals in Denver, won the Cup in 2001, and was fired in late 2002.
From there it was the Atlanta Thrashers (2003-2008), Switzerland’s ZSC Lions, then the Flames. Calgary let him go in 2016, he ran Latvia’s national team for five years, then crossed back over to the KHL with Avangard Omsk.
Take a look at the Game 6 video below, Lokomotiv’s coronation and Hartley’s final shift behind a bench:
Colorado, the franchise that gave Hartley his first NHL job, is in its own Western Conference Final right now. Different era, same Hartley still hanging on the wall in Denver.
He goes out a champion. Not a bad way to end it.
