In my experience, several major SJHL events, be they important games or otherwise, have taken place on a Tuesday, after press time.
Yesterday's trade deadline is another addition to that list.
Fortunately for this scribe, and perhaps unfortunately for fans, it did not look as if this year's deadline would come close to matching the trade frenzy of last year, when plenty of big names were moved, many within the league.
Last year, most of the major moves had been completed before Jan. 10. Yorkton acquired star forwards Jeremy Boyer and Justin Buzzeo from Humboldt on Jan. 7. Melville had also sent forwards Cody Hanson and Brayden Metz to Melfort, in separate deals, by then, and Kindersley picked up forward Spencer Braaten from Humboldt on Jan. 8.
Those are just a few examples. This year, the activity didn't even begin until Monday, and there were only three trades that day, one of which could be described as major.
That deal saw Melfort ship 20-year-old defenceman and captain Mitch Berg to the Battlefords North Stars in exchange for 19-year-old defenceman Zach MacLellan and 18-year-old forward Jake Daughtry.
The Stars also got veteran defenceman Klay Kachur from the BCHL, and Melville picked up defenceman Landon Hall from Dauphin.
But it was a slow day, by day-before-the-deadline standards. It was looking like that could continue into Tuesday, for several reasons.
The races for a top three spot in each conference are still wide open. The only teams that are locks to sell are Melfort and Kindersley.
The Klippers did most of their major dealing at the Dec. 1 deadline when they shipped out Taylor Duzan, Jordon Hoffman and Jesse Mysiorek.
Melfort only has three 20-year-olds left in Connor Bradshaw, Steven Jean and Brendan Tash. Bradshaw is a gritty two-way player who likely interests several teams, but that's probably the only excitement to come out of Melfort.
At the other end of the spectrum, it's unlikely that contending teams will give up big parts of their future when it's a good bet that Humboldt, with the tear they've been on over the past month, will win the league.
Battlefords and Weyburn are the biggest threats to the Broncos. The Stars probably don't need to do anything else, and Weyburn has made moves earlier in the season that made an impact.
The best line about the deadline so far, courtesy of Yorkton general manager Don Chesney, as reported by GX94's Craig Stein: "It's kinda like when I think an old cougar's smiling at me at the mall, but she's looking at a jacket at Suzy Shier."
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at [email protected], on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306 or on his Bruins blog, newly located at estevanmercury.ca/bruinsbanter. Dustin Penner had to be messing with us on that story about throwing his back out while eating "delicious pancakes" right? Right?
