Changing On the Fly - hockey players discuss being traded

EVERY DAY, IN EVERY WALK OF life, people are conducting serious conversations in regards to exchanging something that they have in their possession for another item someone else has in theirs. Children barter apples for oranges. Collectors swap hockey or baseball cards. And of course, general managers in the NHL constantly propose to their counterparts, "My guy for your guy?"

But have you ever wondered how a trade is consummated? How one works from beginning to end? All we hear is the announcement that Player A is going to Team B in exchange for Player C. But what about what we aren't privy to? What about some of the logistics involved that are taken for granted?

Well, so we tracked the anatomy of a trade, as told by those on the front line: the players themselves.

Notification

"Once an agreement between teams is made regarding a trade, the general managers will have a conference call with the NHL for league ratification," says Montreal Canadiens general manager Rejean Houle. "The NHLPA really doesn't get involved, but they can request a memorandum of the trade."

Once a trade has been completed and has been approved by the league, the clubs usually contact the players involved. Usually.

"Well, [who contacts the player] depends on the situation," says Dallas Stars center Kirk Muller "If the trade is out of the blue and totally unexpected, you should get a call from the GM of your old team. Generally the team that you're traded from notifies you first and then informs you that you should be expecting a call from your new team."

But it is not unusual for a player to hear of his transaction via the airwaves before a GM can personally communicate the deal to trim. "Yeah, you kind of hope it's not a situation where you hear it over the radio, but sometimes that happens," says Muller. "When the trade is completed, the NHL has to be made aware of it, so sometimes the news [makes its way to the public] before the players involved have been contacted."

Reaction and Distraction

Being let go by a team can be a humbling experience. But rather than sulking, most players in the league will tell you that a fortunate and optimistic feeling soon comes over them, knowing that another club in the NHL has bartered for their services.

However, for Dallas Stars left wing Ted Donato, being traded for the first time was an emotional trauma that he admits hindered his on-ice execution. "It affected my play," the native Bostonian says about his trade from the Bruins to the New York Islanders early in the 1998-99 season. "I saw it coming but it still affected me."

"As a player you try to mentally sever ties to where you've been and try to build loyalty and commitment to [your] new organization," says Gerald Diduck, one of Donato's current Stars teammates, who himself was traded to Dallas in October.

Donato has a perfectly good explanation, though, as to why his performance was less than stellar following the deal. "To be perfectly honest, a lot of these guys have been traded or have left their own hometown and cities to pursue their career," he says. "I was very fortunate. I played my college hockey in Boston at Harvard, played on the U.S. Olympic, which has a home base in Boston, and then I played for the Bruins. Then, all of a sudden, I've got on a different sweater. It's definitely different and there is definitely a psychological and emotional attachment that you have made with your team that you need to overcome."

The Move

After gathering themselves from the initial shock of a trade, the players then have to deal with physically moving to the new city. In theory, it's an easy task.

"They arrange everything for you," says Muller, who has been dealt four times in his career. "Usually-you receive a secretary from your new team that makes the travel arrangements. They basically say, `This is the earliest flight out, pack up, arid, oh, by the way, this is our next game.' So you just pack whatever you can in a couple of hours because generally you're flying out that night or early the next morning.

"They usually take good care of you, get you on a flight, and throw you in a hotel when you get there."

And your equipment?

"You work with the equipment guy from the team you are leaving and then he notifies the equipment guy from your new team," Muller says. "You give the equipment manager what you use and your sticks and then he puts it all in a bag and fires it out to your new team for you."

Piece of cake, right? Well, sometimes what is supposed to happen isn't what actually does happen in the frenzied time following the completion of a deal.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Contrary to his teammate's tidy description of how to go to a new team in a new city with the little stress, Donato's first experience with being traded was extraordinary to say the least. "When I was first traded from Boston to New York, the Bruins were playing in Pittsburgh and had just finished an afternoon game," says Donato, who was traded three times in a seven-month period beginning in November 1998. "After the game I got called in by the assistant GM of the Bruins, Mike O'Connell. He told me I had been traded to Long Island.