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Report: Flames to Hire Craig Conroy as General Manager |
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Per Darren Dreger of TSN, the Calgary Flames will be hiring Craig Conroy as their next general manager later this week.
Conroy, 51, has served as an assistant GM since 2014. Prior to that, he had served as special assistant to the GM for four seasons.
Craig has been working towards this hiring for thirteen years. From personal experience, you would be hard-pressed to find a more approachable human being. If the Flames are looking for a culture shift; the Potsdam, New York native is a good start.
I’ve spoken to Craig once. It was 2014 and Brad Treliving’s second offseason as GM. The Flames had their annual open scrimmage at development camp. The year prior had been the Gaudreau & Mony Show. Johnny scored two or three breakaway goals.
2014 was a little more down to Earth.
Gaudreau was at camp but had nothing to prove. Kenny Agostino, Morgan Klimchuk, and Emile Poirier, on the other hand, were working hard to establish themselves after being part of the return for Jarome Iginla and Jay Bouwmeester. Hunter Smith and Keegan Kanzig were certainly big — and Mark Jankowski was doggedly putting up goals in the hope that he would be held in consideration for a top-six role when the time came.
The Calgary Flames brain trust were sitting a row back and Bob Hartley may as well have been alone in the stands for all the attention he was paying to anything off the ice.
Beside the group was a young brother and sister. Both certainly under the age of ten. The boy had gotten a seat and the girl was left to stand. That didn’t go unnoticed by Craig.
Conroy made it easy. With just a brief exchange, the girl was sitting in Craig’s seat and Craig jumped down a row to sit next to me.
If that wasn’t enough, he struck up a conversation with the guy next to him. This guy. Just some dumb 20-something year old with nothing to do with the organization. We discussed John Gilmour and Brandon Hickey’s passing skills, the quickness of Jon Gillies — Craig was emphatic about how much he was looking forward to where Brett Kulak’s game was going to go.
While the cap situation in Calgary is currently wrapped up by the three major contracts of Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, and Jacob Markstrom — it’s going to be fun to follow how Craig takes on the challenge.
One thing that is certain is that Craig Conroy is an approachable guy.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via eliteprospects.com.
Just a quick addendum: Did you know that Noel Acciari, Frank Vatrano and Mason Marchment all attended Flames development camp as unsigned tryouts between 2011-2015? Imagine having those three in the organization for the last ten years.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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