Halak traded! HUH?

Where were you December 2, 1995?

Don't remember?

I remember it well. I was at Peel Pub, in downtown Montreal, watching mes Canadiens get shellacked by the Detroit Red Wings. The final score was 11-2. Newly appointed Mario 'Bluet bionique' Tremblay was behind the bench. Patrick Roy allowed nine goals and was finally pulled. When he came back to the bench, words were exchanged. It was clear that he was angry. The next day, what I feared most happened: my hero, my favorite hockey player since a young age, the guy who occupied an entire portion of my bedroom wall, was traded.

To the Colorado Avalanche.

Which used to be the Canadiens' arch-rival and nemesis, the Quebec Nordique.*

(It could have been worse. If they had traded him to Toronto, I probably would have cried for a decade).

Now, I don't want to pretend like June 17, 2010 will be seared into my memory in quite the same way, but I cannot believe that mes Canadiens just traded yet another goalie: Jaroslav Halak.

What? <-- you may be asking yourself. 'But he had such a great theme song.' But we're losing more than just an amusing Lady Gaga cover in this trade.

Commentary believes that perhaps he priced himself (ha!) out of the Canadiens' range, that we acquired potentially good players, and other speculation. I think that all of it is hooey. This guy just got the team through two very difficult rounds of the playoffs. You keep that guy. Carey Price on the other hand, has done basically bupkis apart from not living up to his potential. I didn't see much emergent potential last season from him. One theory is that Price gets traded too. Great. So then we have an unknown in net.

Has hockey really reached a point where you trade one of the most valuable players from your recent playoff run for two potentials? That's awful. Bad locker room karma. Mind you, I shouldn't be surprised seeing as how this franchise could also not keep one of its most dedicated and valuable players, Saku Koivu, in what may have been the last year of his career.

Oh, and in case you want to make some comparison with the Patriots cleaning house last year: I don't see these situations as parallel. The Pats had issues, primarily on the D, and they attempted to solve them. Halak, on the other hand, is likely at the top of his game -- or at least he was in that playoff run. You've just traded away a real asset on your team.

Current mood: severely unhappy.

*In a kind of James Bond, the villain always loses way, because they pretty much sucked and Montreal was pretty much awesome.