Brad Treliving calls out Boston smear campaign against Dougie Hamilton

New Calgary Flames defenseman Dougie Hamilton isn’t going to dispel any sort of rumors about his leaving the Boston Bruins because to him, there weren’t any real problems.

Recently, Hamilton became the latest Boston-area athlete to be shoved out the door by a local media story.

“I’m trying not to pay attention to all that stuff too much,” Hamilton said. “I think for me right now it’s just a lot of excitement honestly with me just getting traded to the Flames and now signing and everything.”

General manager Brad Treliving was a little more, um, stout in his assessment of Hamilton and what he thought about his newest prized blueliner. In fact, Treliving interjected after Hamilton answered a question about this on a conference call Tuesday. The Flames acquired Hamilton on Saturday at the NHL Draft and signed him to a six-year contract Tuesday.

“When we went through this process of acquiring Dougie, and I know in my mind there’s been a lot of crap written in the last little bit, we do a lot of research on the player, not only what he does on the ice, but what he does off the ice. I’ve been asked a little bit over the last couple days, and I don’t really want to give it any type of response, but I think it deserves one based on the questions that I’ve been asked.

"There’s a lot of things that keep me up at night, the type of person that Dougie is, the type of teammate that he is, is not one of them. We do a lot of research in terms of the player on the ice, the personality,” Treliving said.

A story in the Boston Herald, quoting an anonymous assistant general manager in the NHL, described Hamilton as ‘uppity’ and that ‘his teammates don’t like him.’

HOW DARE YOU NOT WANT TO PLAY IN BOSTON DOUGIE!

“Off the ice, coming into the team it’s an older team and I kind of had to find my spot. I think it was a lot of great guys on that team and made a lot of friends with them. It was a lot of fun there. I enjoyed it,” Hamilton said, presumably talking about his time in Boston. “For me looking forward, I’m… as I get older I want to become more of a leader.”

Hamilton said he’s looking forward to learning the leadership ropes from Flames captain Mark Giordano, who has never won the Mark Messier Leadership Award selected by Mark Messier.

The fact we are questioning the character of a 22-year-old defenseman who’s 6-foot-5 and had 42 points last year is strange for so many reasons.

A. Because he’s 22, and still has some growing up to do like most 22 year olds. It doesn't sound like he did anything horribly wrong.

B. He’s an incredible asset for the Flames, especially as the Battle of Alberta heats up with Connor McDavid heading to Edmonton. He’ll be a top-two blueliner for Calgary for the next six years.

C. The Predators are trying to re-sign Mike Ribeiro – which is probably a bigger deal than Hamilton being uppity.

All this does is land Hamilton on the list of Boston athletes kicked to the curb as they head to different organizations to cement their legacies. Tyler Seguin partied too much and Joe Thornton is too chill to lead a team to a championship.

Who’s the next candidate to get ridden out of Beantown? Waiting for the rumor that Milan Lucic skipped the Space Mountain line at Disneyland last week.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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