Self-Defeating Prophecy

Can you remember a time where Canada's major sports networks advertised so heavily, so early for their Deadline Day broadcasts? I can't, and I believe they are in for a long, slow haul on February 28th. They only have themselves to blame. Since January 1st, every pre-game show, every intermission report, every SportsCentre and Hockey Central update has involved discussion about who's getting traded where and for whom. TSN and Rogers Sportsnet let the cats out of the bag, and once they were free, the NHL's General Managers felt no need to limit their bargaining power by chasing them down and re-securing them in a cloak of secrecy.

By trying to sway audiences to sit down with them for close to eight hours tomorrow, each station has slowly eroded the range of subject matter they can cover. There's almost no one of significance left to trade. Names like Hemsky and Penner and Macarthur and Richards keep coming up, but I have to think its a last minute effort to keep interest high. It might work, because so many of the rumours involve Canadian teams, but we also might be bored to death tomorrow. I'll do my best to rectify that.