Tanev talks Flames culture change, pursuing a finance degree

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Throughout this tenure with the Calgary Flames, players, coaches, and management have lauded Chris Tanev for his selflessness, stability, and impact on younger players. The undrafted blueliner signed a four-year contract with the Flames in 2020 after starting his career with the Vancouver Canucks.

While his impact on the ice and in the dressing room has been immeasurable, Tanev is still a bit of an unknown to hockey fans. He doesn’t say much during press conferences and often defers to the teammate answering questions next to him. Tanev doesn’t have a public Twitter account and has posted just twice on Instagram in the past year and a half.

Despite his low profile, Tanev spent a few minutes with TSN after Monday’s practice to talk about the team’s culture shift under head coach Darryl Sutter, his guidance for young defencemen, and how he almost named his pug after a Seinfeld character.TSN: You’re nearly done the season. How has this team evolved since game one?

Tanev: “It’s been a long road since we started in October. We’ve evolved a lot. We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, the COVID outbreak in December where we barely played and had to make up those games in the last two months. That’s obviously been a challenge. We’ve learned a lot. Darryl keeps us on our toes and makes sure we’re ready every day and makes sure we’re ready to accomplish what we need to do that day to be successful.” 

TSN: A lot of players have mentioned the early season road trip through New York and playing teams in the East [Calgary went 5-0-0] as important in defining your process and learning how to win. Do you see that road trip the same way?

Tanev: “Well, we didn’t start how we wanted to. Obviously we lost in Edmonton