Some people like comparing in-season trades to Christmas shopping. I think it makes perfect sense. The best acquisitions are usually made days or weeks in advance, but the real scramble doesn't happen until hours before closing time. Everyone wakes up on the morning of Trade Deadline Day (aka the last shopping day before Christmas), spends about five minutes catching up on what (if anything) happened overnight, then settles in for what should be a big day - but isn't. A trade might happen here or there, but for the most part, GMs aren't engaging in the kind of all-day, player-swapping frenzy that fans have come to expect. Then fans get bored, the serious guys on TSN try to find ways to fill time, Jay Onrait does something goofy, and James Duthie wavers between witty and serious. Things get really boring around lunchtime, and everyone is hungry and cranky and thinks it's the worst trade deadline ever, until about an hour before the actual deadline. Then, GMs get frantic and realize they're running out of time. They start trading anything and everything. Some moves are really smart and interesting and others maybe aren't. But it's a trading frenzy because, like the last hour of shopping before Christmas, people have to buy SOMETHING. And all of a sudden fans take back everything they said, and they think that trade deadline day is exciting again, and they all tweet "Everything is happening!" at the exact same time.
What I didn't know:
Wade Redden is still playing hockey?
