OHL trading frenzy tiresome

Every year, the OHL trade front becomes more and more crazy, especially in the season the league hosts the Memorial Cup.

With the Kitchener Rangers putting on the big show in May, the league's contenders have been swallowing up any and all available players with a few exceptions.

This year's deadline is Thursday, Jan. 10. (Most of the prized catches have already been gobbled up by contending teams making the deadline a less exciting time.)

To me, it's finally gotten ridiculous. I don't get why so many teams have to make so many blockbuster moves for the now and sacrifice the future.

The Rangers are a prime example. At the start of last week, they were ranked first in the country, thanks to a record of 30-4-1-2. In the OHL, the Rangers are first overall, and according to goals for and goals against numbers, they're the top offensive and second best defensive team in the OHL.

Yet, recently, they sent two good players and four high draft picks to London for goalie Steve Mason. They also sent another strong young player and a high draft pick to Kingston for defender Ben Shutron.

Talk about ripping a part the team chemistry.

I think a lot of these teams end up hurting their chances with too many blockbusters. These big blockbusters rarely pay off in a championship trophy.

Brampton sent two players and five draft picks to Kingston for Cory Emmerton. Yes, one player for potentially seven. Makes sense doesn't it?

The biggest losers in most cases end up being the fans of most of the teams that don't win, despite going for broke.

In many cases, these teams which have made big trades pay a stiffer price at the conclusion of the season. They end up sending proven players to complete the transactions. A great example was Sudbury last season in the deals they made with Toronto and Sarnia. In the summer, Sudbury had to pony up Devin DiDiomete to Sarnia and Justin Larson to Toronto (now Mississauga).

These extra players or details of their future movement are never included in the official deals, which are released.
Fans are left to sit back scratching their heads wondering what happened.

Owen Sound was also guilty of this last year with Brampton. They brought in Howie Martin and Phil Oreskovic for a pile of prospects and draft picks. Then boom, in the summer, Owen Sound had to relinquish star defenceman Bobby Sanguinetti. For all their trouble, Owen Sound was swept in the first round by London. Their big move resulted in a four-game play off run. Talk about a rip-off for fans.

And it's not just the players getting moved in the off season that irks me. It's also the draft picks. I was looking at Kitchener's deal with London for Mason. It involves picks for the 2011 and 2012 drafts because Kitchener has already traded away their high picks in 2008, 2009 and 2010. How can any team rebuild with so few high-end picks? They can't and they end up spinning their wheels for years afterwards.

Again, it's the fans that get stuck with the brunt of these trading fiascoes.

Just once, I would like to see a contending team stick to its guns and make a run with what they got. It might earn some better success. No one will know for sure until someone actually does it.