D-Day Continues Sort Of

Courtesy Alan Caldwell:

Friday, January 11, 2008

D-day continues....sort of

There were no more trades yesterday, so deadline day saw just the eight deals. A little less than usual perhaps, but on the other hand it probably shouldn't be too surprising since a number of the big names were moved in the week or so leading up the deadline.

One of the trades made on Wednesday has already been voided: the Rockets' deal to acquire Brent Ottmann from Prince Albert for a conditional draft pick has been nullified since Ottmann has apparently decided to stay in Junior A rather than report to Kelowna. So, Ottmann's rights revert back to the Raiders and the Rockets keep their draft pick.

Trades weren't the other things happening yesterday; a fair number of players were also released or reassigned by their teams:

Portland released two forwards: 19 year old import Viktor Sjodin, and 18 year old Matt Betker.
Kootenay reassigned defenceman Jordan Wilkins to Merritt of the B.C. Junior A league.
Prince George released 19 year old forward Morgan MacLean. MacLean immediately joined the Junior A Prince George Spruce Kings (he didn't even have to move to a different city!) and played for the Spruce Kings last night already.
Prince George also reassigned 19 year old goalie Tommy Tartaglione to the Surrey Eagles of the B.C. Junior A league.
Brandon released 19 year old import forward Robert Brandis.
Red Deer assigned 17 year old forward Spencer Edwards to the Cowichan Valley Capitals of the B.C. Junior A league.
Saskatoon assigned 18 year old forward Jordan Braid to the Kindersley Klippers of the Saskatchewan Junior A league.
And, one team added a player: Portland added 17 year old forward Colin Reddin, whose route t the WHL has not been without bumps. As a 15 year old, he attended Hawks camp and apparently felt the WHL was the route for him, so he signed a WHL player education agreement with the Hawks at that time, although he did not play any exhibition or regular season games for the team. Sometime after that though, he apparently had a change of heart and decided to pursue the college route instead. Except, by signing that education agreement, he forfeited his college eligibility under NCAA rules. He was appealing to the NCAA to have his eligibility reinstated since he never actually got any education money from the Winter Hawks, but I'm guessing from his decision yesterday that his appeal wasn't getting favourable reviews from the NCAA people.

What more can you say about an organization that punishes kids for harmless decisions they made when they were 15. I thought the definition of being a professional was to have earned or received payment for playing.....since Reddin needed to actually play for the Hawks in order to earn the WHL education money, the fact that he hadn't played for them yet (and thus hadn't earned or received any benefits) should enable him to retain amateur status for NCAA purposes. At least, that's the common sense approach. Common sense and the NCAA are so often strangers when it comes to hockey players though.

And one last note.....this blog had 1,242 visits yesterday, and close to 800 on each of the three days before that. Considering it normally averages about 420 visits per day, I'd say that kind of traffic indicates I'm not the only one who finds the trade deadline very interesting. :-)