If ever there was any, I'm sure the dust has settled

I was out for dinner last night with the incomparable Darell, and we talked a little about print media. We started down the path by talking about Stephen Brunt of the Globe and Mail, and his wonderful piece at the end of the Olympics (which is the same message I had here Monday morning, just y'know, way better). As the topic turned to more important matters, we agreed that perhaps the most damaging aspect of the modern 24-hour news cycle is that lack of time for reflection and lack of distance most stories can have now. Tiger Woods crashes his car in the wee hours of Thanksgiving? I got a text message before I was even awake breaking down the facts, offering theories and analysis, and generally creating the TIGER! TIGER! TIGER! we've been forced to digest ever since. So with that in mind, I decided to take some time to think about the 2010 NHL Trade Deadline before offering any commentary. It's this: that was probably the worst Trade Deadline ever. I just can't be bothered to peel back layers of Wojtek Wolskis and Dustin Boyds to offer up thoughts on winners, losers, or anything else. In the end, TSN's ratings were probably winners, hockey fans were losers, and no one team got either significantly better or worse yesterday. And if I'm a fan of any of the active teams, I'm not accepting whatever spin they're putting on their days. Lubomir Visnovsky doesn't make Anaheim particularly better, and Edmonton's only getting $1.4 million in cap relief by accepting Ryan Whitney in return. And that was honestly the biggest trade of the day. What a waste. The bad teams are still bad, the good teams are still good, and none of Pittsburgh, Washington or Chicago are particularly better today than they were Tuesday. So let's all just move on to writing letters to the NHL demanding NHl participation at the 2014 Olympics.