Bourne Blog: When a player gets traded, so does his family

In an interview about his recent trade from the Florida Panthers to the Washington Capitals, Dennis Wideman(notes) answered a seemingly innocuous question: When would they like you in the line-up?

Wideman said the Caps would like to have him in uniform for the game tonight, just a day after the trade deadline. He also mentioned his family in the same conversation.

That's no easy time for a family.

When the New York Islanders dealt my dad to the Los Angeles Kings in 1986, it was a tough situation for our family.

The roots had long-since set on Long Island for us, being that we'd lived there for 12 years. My parents built a home next to Clark Gillies and his family and, more importantly, built a life.

My brother, Jeff, was born with spina bifida, scoliosis and hydrocephalus -- serious conditions that require ongoing medical attention and support. My parents found the right schools, teachers, nurses and support staff to help meet his needs and start his happy life. I had started school. And then, of course, there were all the friends you make living in the same community for well over a decade.

This was different than when I was traded in the minors and switched fully furnished apartments. My parents, like many veteran players, had a house to sell and lives to move. With the 86-87 season on the horizon, a tough decision had to be made: for his first year with the Kings, my dad moved to LA without the family while everything was taken care of on the Island. My mom and us kids would move the following summer.

This arrangement isn't all that uncommon in the NHL. In fact, that same summer Clark Gillies was traded to the Buffalo Sabres, and his wife, three daughters and multiple dogs stayed behind for a season as well.

It was hard on my mom, and it was hard on us kids, but that the nature of the business for NHL players and their families.

The lifestyle afforded by the sport is worth plenty of sacrifices, but as players get older their priorities change and decisions get harder.

(Knowing how hard these changes were for us, by the way, reinforces how much Bill Guerin(notes) loves hockey. Dude would take his family to Alaska tomorrow if they got an NHL team and signed him.)

Now, this isn't the problem of general managers -- that's not to say they're cold-hearted, but as we so often say, it's a business. They make a lot of money to hand off quality rosters to their coaches and to the fans, so nobody considers them villains for being businessmen.

But sometimes we forget that the weeks and months that follow a trade bring unseen challenges to the players being dealt. Sometimes we can't quit figure out streaks and slumps, but really, what do we know about a player's life away from the rink?

My worst college season was directly linked to off-ice struggles. It's not like you're thinking about those personal issues during games; it's that they take away from your ability to prepare.

I remember rushing home from practice to deal with problems instead of going to the gym. I remember being on the phone to iron things out instead of getting proper rest and preparation time. Dealing with realtors and moving trucks can't make an NHLer's ability to prepare very easy either.

For younger players, it is simpler. Most up and comers have one main focus: hockey. They're excited to meet new teammates, get new opportunities, and to live in a new city. But it's different for the family man who's played in the NHL for ten years.

Some players value no-trade clauses more than they value dollars and cents -- the stability and security they provide in an insecure world is priceless.

For the players without that luxury who woke up in their own beds this morning -- knowing that tomorrow will be no different -- you rest assured that smiles abounded.

Off the ice, consistency is underrated, and simplicity is a gift.

Related: Bill Guerin, Dennis Wideman, Buffalo Sabres, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, New York Islanders, Washington Capitals

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Bourne Blog: As the playoffs draw closer, points stop being so easy

As the hockey season progresses, it becomes a lot more difficult to pick up goals, let alone get chances. And with opportunities to score dwindling, you have to face the harsh realization that your odds of potting an Ovechtrick aren't looking so great.

For veteran players at any level, the first couple months of the season are like a buffet of all-you-can-handle scoring opportunities. The rookies, not so shockingly, play like rookies -- they're out of position, tentative, and most aren't used to the step up in physical play.

Without doing anything extra special at all, just playing your role, you find yourself with the puck in areas of the ice you know you won't see in late February. By then, rookies that couldn't hack it have been weeded out and sent down, and the ones who could have played over half a season and some made big strides. That's all fine and dandy for them, but it means you get fewer freebies later in the season, which isn't all fine and dandy for you.

Team systems tighten up this time of the year as well. So much of the early part of the season is spent doing the kind of slow, methodical systems walk-throughs that make you want to jab coach's dry erase pen in your eye that by now, it's all well-beaten into your thick, hockey playing head.

Mistakes simply stop being tolerated at some point (that "point" always seems arbitrary as a player), so coaches start giving more ice time to those who don't make them.

Most teams start the season simple in the systems department (and then they sell sea shells at the sea shore), and use the building blocks method to progress - start simple, end up complex. By the playoffs, some coaches will have different lines employing different forechecks (whatever suits them best), while others choose to use different systems depending on who's on the ice for their opponent.

Things get awfully custom, and as teams dabble in their new systems, more early season errors are made, which provides players with those oh-so valuable scoring chances. But one day your team and other teams start to get everything nailed down, and suddenly it feels like every team has a sixth skater out there. Hello, slump.

What happened to all the room out here?

Combine those factors with being physically worn down, and suddenly scoring a goal feels like an accomplishment worthy of an Ovechtrick celebration (especially against a "healthy" team, if any of those still exist).

It'd be hard to argue that any other sport has a more demanding schedule, as ours provides the opportunity for both football-style injuries (due to the speed and physical nature of the game) and carpal-tunnel-esque injuries, given the repetitive nature of playing 82 games with morning skates and over a hundred practices. It all adds up to some inevitable discomfort.

Fighting through that and battling to get to the net for a scoring chance is always worth it, but you can only keep the mental intensity up on so many nights, and this ain't playoffs. You can guess how that attitude helps your stats.

It doesn't take long to start to miss the wide-open early season hockey.

I've always felt like if both teams in a hockey game know exactly how their opponent is going to play, that favours the defense. It's a lot easier to foil an opportunity with a little poke of the puck when you know where it's going than it is to exploit a defense because you know how they're playing.

So even when teams do figure each other out tactically, it still sucks offensively. When you see two teams playing for the fifth time in a season and it looks sloppy (in terms of passing), it can be tough to understand. Well, a lot of the reason is because it's so tight positionally.

The cream rises to the top in the season's final third, while the posers falter. We're about to find out if teams like the Dallas Stars just had a hot start, or if they're fit to run with early season disappointments like the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks, who most suspect will come through.

The biggest thing about succeeding late in the season is being mentally strong enough to keep plugging -- just because points are harder to come by doesn't mean they're not attainable.

The grind can wear you down; now's when great players and great teams pick it up.

Related: Chicago Blackhawks, Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks

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