Sunday, February 26, 2012

Buyers, Sellers and Lookie Loos

As Sunday's scheduled games come to a close, some members of each team today may perhaps be bidding farewell to their team mates for the final time.

The NHL's trade deadline madness gets underway at 8 am ET on Monday, 5 am for those unfortunate souls that play for the West coast teams.

A day long roller coaster of rumour and speculation, of pundits putting together pieces of puzzles that may or may not resemble the actual blue prints of the league's 30 General Managers.

As deadline day dawns, those GM's will have to make what could the career threatening decision of whether their team is to be a buyer or a seller on the day, whether they will run up the white flag of surrender on the current season, or fly the battle flag high as they pick up the pieces that they believe will lead their squad on to playoff hockey in April, May and for the truly gifted GM into June.

It's a day of anxiety for players, well those without the benefit of the no trade clause, where perhaps a championship team moves them off to a bottom feeder all part of the larger picture of designing an NHL roster for the future.

For those that have been wallowing in the dungeon of the NHL for a few years (Hello Rick Nash, how coin') Monday could provide deliverance to a contender, the fanciful dreams of their youth of a Stanley Cup appearance suddenly achieved, all by the click of a telephone line as GM's reconfigure their franchises.

Some players will find that the day provides them with a second chance from a woeful year, one where the Stanley Cup is still within reach, for others, it will be a signal that it's time to dig around in the garage and find out where they put those golf clubs.

For the fans, each trade provides the chance to divine if their team is closer or further away from a serious run at Lord Stanley's Cup, for some Monday will reveal that their favourite team has abandoned all hope.

As has been the tradition over the years now, the Sports channels will all have their panels and reporters chomping at the bit to deliver the news first, sometimes even accurately.  Newspaper websites will be updated regularly, the sports radio shows both local and on Sirius will devote hours and hours to the deadline deals and the twitter world will tweet furiously ever single rumoured move.

Links to the various media options on trade deadline day can be found below.

We'll offer up some overview of all the madness from our humble little portal (our year round Trading Post is always available for the latest trades in the NHL),  fully realizing that the full weight of the continents sports machines out number our efforts and out spend us in numbers to hard to comprehend.

It all gets underway in the early morning hours, grab some sleep, set the alarm and fill up your coffee maker, Deadline day is but hours away.


NHL.com Trade Deadline 2012 Page


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