The Behind-The-Scenes Reality of Trade Deadline Day for Players and Agents

It's the kind of news nobody wants to hear after a long night out.

After a 5-1 loss to the Dallas Stars on March 5, 2004, Jamie McLennan went out until the wee hours of the night. When McLennan returned to his Dallas hotel at 5 AM, he locked eyes with Calgary Flames general manager Darryl Sutter. Afraid he'd be lambasted for missing curfew, McLennan quickly escaped to his room.

On his way to the team bus the next morning, Sutter stopped McLennan and told him he'd been traded to the New York Rangers. McLennan laughed at first, wondering if he'd been flipped for skipping curfew. But just three days before the 2004 NHL trade deadline, the Flames had playoff aspirations and McLennan didn't figure into the picture. He was part of a package going to New York for Chris Simon.

As the bus pulled away without McLennan, with it went his shot at a Stanley Cup, as the Rangers were in the middle of a quick rebuild. With only enough clothes for a short road trip, McLennan—and often dozens of other players dealt at the trade deadline every year—had to live out of a bag for the duration of the season.

"People forget your life gets turned upside down a little bit," says McLennan. "It's not like you get two or three days to report. You're playing the next day for a new organization."

Every year, NHL trade deadline day is treated as something of a holiday for hockey fans in Canada. Armchair GMs carve dents in their couches for the full-day broadcasts on TSN and Sportsnet and feast on the rampant cycle of trades.

The day after, the Stanley Cup playoff picture comes into focus and the hockey world moves forward. But the players, now forced to adjust to new surroundings and new teammates, often stay in limbo. All it takes is one phone call and everything players have become used to is now null and void.

The call came when Brad Lukowich was least expecting it. Lukowich had also been out late the night before the trade deadline, this time at an Islanders charity event with players and New York GM Mike Milbury.

Milbury gave him no inclination that he would be moved the next day. The then 29-year-old defenceman was on his third team in four seasons, had a Stanley Cup ring and, though he was on a one-year deal, felt comfortable. Lukowich says he was assured by ownership before the Christmas break that the Islanders would be adding pieces, not subtracting.

Around 11 AM on March 9, 2006, Lukowich went to take the ice for practice.

An Islanders trainer caught him. "Wow, you're still going on the ice," he said, solemnly.

Confused, Lukowich pressed for details. He hadn't heard anything from Milbury, but the trainer told him he'd been traded to the New Jersey Devils at 8 that morning. Still without any word from Milbury, he'd left the arena within five minutes of hearing the trainer's news and was headed home.

"I called my wife, told her to put my brown suit together and get the directions to the practice facility in New Jersey," Lukowich says. "She said 'Why?' I said, 'You know why.'"

Lukowich would go on to play parts of five more seasons in the NHL but is still waiting on that call from Milbury. Nowadays, that call can come from a player's team, agent, or in an age when the media can learn about a deal first, from a hungry journalist looking to confirm a scoop.

"There's lot of things I don't like about the day," says high-profile agent Allan Walsh. "But the one thing I really don't like is there have been many situations over the past few years when a player has literally been watching TV and he finds out he's been traded on TV. That, to me, is crazy."

Walsh figures to be one of the busier agents on deadline day. His roster of clients includes many possible pieces of trade bait, from Jonathan Drouin to P.A. Parenteau. The L.A.-based Walsh gets an early start to his day. He arrives at his office with his staff by 4:30 AM. From there, Walsh runs a war room that is home to a constant cycle of communication between players, teams and media.

Broadly cast in contemporary pop culture as ruthless sharks in suits, player agents are perhaps busier than anyone else on deadline day. Their role has changed from the aforementioned shark to a counselor of sorts, who must absorb the shock felt by clients traded on deadline day regardless of how the news is delivered.

"Sometimes a player is uptight and to hear from the agent just has a calming effect," adds Roland Thompson, an agent whose roster includes Roman Josi and Brooks Laich.

Walsh says it's not uncommon for the agent to be the first person called by a team once a deal is made, often before the actual trade call goes through to the league. While there is no official practice, other agents told me that how a player is alerted of a deal doesn't matter much these days—even if a player does find out he's been traded by hearing a report on TV.

Not all players agree with that line of thinking.

"If I'm doing business the right way, I think it's an obligation," Lukowich says of the responsibility he believes a GM has to deliver the news of a trade.

"Guys put their blood, sweat and tears in for you and do everything possible to give you a championship, I would think you have to at least give a guy a phone call."

At the 2003 deadline, which seems light years away from the rabid rumour mill that runs on speculative tweets today, Mathieu Schneider received a call at 6 AM from Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet. Schneider had requested a trade from the Los Angeles Kings and Kypreos called to let him know he was dealt. It was the first he'd heard of it.

"It's a crazy business," says Schneider—now an executive with the NHLPA—who was dealt at the deadline again in 2010.

"I've had players say to me they literally found out they were traded by watching Tradecentre on TSN," says McLennan, himself now an on-air personality with the network.

Of the handful of former players I spoke to for this story, all admitted a level of surprise at being traded. This even comes after the wall-to-wall coverage leading up to the trade deadline, where many players are subject to a constantly rotating rumour mill.

"In a perfect world you'd love to be able to advise (not reading about trade rumours) and have your instructions followed but the reality is that we live in a world now that whether you're seeking out the information by sitting on your computer, iPad, iPhone, or whether you're not, it's practically being pushed to you anyway," says Walsh.

"Players are aware. Players families are aware. Sometimes if a player has been playing long enough, his kids are aware."

NHL players are just as immersed in deadline day trade coverage as hockey fans.

"It's typical on that day that everyone's sitting around watching TSN," says Eric Weinrich, who was traded at the deadline in 2006 to the Vancouver Canucks. "Guys are sending text messages to see if anyone has any scoops. We were all sitting around playing jokes on each other, saying that someone was calling for them."

As fans debate these deals, so, too, do players. Jeff Halpern, who was traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Los Angeles Kings at the 2010 deadline, says players speculate and play the role of GM.

Halpern was one of the lucky ones. He went from a poor Lightning team to a rising Kings squad and was happy to spend the duration of the season in a Manhattan Beach hotel. Not every player is that lucky.

If you're on a road trip, you're stuck with the contents of your bag until you can get back home. Teams must maximize their return and can't have players skipping out for a few days to get their lives in order, so players are often bound to hotels for the duration of the season.

The CBA ensures that if a player is traded, his new team will pay for his new accommodations while he continues to pay for his old housing. Veteran players with families often have to take on extra responsibility with the trade.

"I wasn't one of the guys that liked to live away from my family too much," says Schneider. "I tried to make accommodations as best I could so that I could have my family come. It was inconvenient, especially when you have four kids."

Schneider lived at Chris Chelios' home after he was dealt in 2003, and his family spent time living at former teammate Bryan Smolinski's home in Detroit, as well.

After Lukowich was traded at the deadline, he and his family were holed up at an extended stay Ramada for the duration of the season.

"My older daughter learned how to swim in that pool," he says. "Because that's all you can do at the hotel."

It's fun to speculate on what kind of trades will come at this year's deadline. But as the day comes to a close, for players traded, fun rarely factors into the equation.

"It's tough to lay roots in a community," says McLennan, "when you're constantly moving."