That Oughta Do It...

Well, if something was going to knock me out of my funk the day I came back from vacation, this would pretty much do it...

I've lived in Toronto for about 8 years now and over the years I've acquired a lot of friends and acquaintances who are huge Leaf fans (if that is really possible) and are quick to tell me every rumour about the Leafs picking up everyone from Peter Forsberg to Roberto Luongo. When you throw in the fact that my hometown a couple hours to the north is also polluted with them (yes, I did mean polluted), I've pretty much lived my life surrounded by them and I've been very vocal about my love for the Flames...

Which leads me to Sunday afternoon...

I spent last week in the Dominican Republic where I had no idea what was going on in the NHL (which, given the recent play of the Flames was probably a good thing), and I had just gotten home that morning...

So after a few hours of sleep I was reading through my emails and my buddy Tim calls me. I don't usually hear from him too much, unless he wants to make a trade in our fantasy pool or he's blabbing about who the Leafs are picking up now...

So it starts out the same way as every other time...

"Hey buddy, how's it going?"

"We really need to get together for pints some time in the next couple weeks..."

And then he drops this one...

"Your boy Phaneuf is a Leaf now, eh?"

Of course, I consider the source, so my first response is "uhm, yeah, I'll believe it when I see it..."

Which is about when I am stumbling over to Facebook where another buddy of mine starts talking to me over instant messenger about the same thing...

And then I see all the status updates...

And finally the links...

Crap...

But let me clarify a little...

Its not so much that Phaneuf got traded...

Its not that the Flames didn't get a big name back...

Its not even that he got traded to the hated Leafs (well, pitied Leafs lately)...

After just coming back from a week in the sun, where hockey was one of the furthest things from my daily thoughts...

Its that I had to find out about it from about twenty Leaf fans at the same time!