In hockey, March Madness begins early! Next Wednesday, March 4, the NHL trade deadline will arrive at 3 PM ET and it is sure to be a very busy and exciting day. In the last 3 years alone, the 30 teams have combined for an average of 25 trades involving no fewer than 40 different players, not counting the various draft picks that change teams as well. The 3 major Canadian sports networks (TSN, Sportsnet, and the Score) will begin their coverage at 8:00 AM and won't stop until around 7 PM. In the US, the coverage will naturally be substantially reduced, which is why I'm glad I live in Canada. If you miss parts of it---and why would you if you're a real hockey fan---the networks will have special trade deadline web pages, complete with live "Trade Trackers" and video streams, on the big day itself.

In a situation like this, it helps to be well prepared. They say you can't tell the players without a program so here are some of the players that you might see and hear about that are likely to be traded on or before the deadline. Before I give you my list, I should mention that some teams have already made trades that they hope will help them and might be a warm-up for even bigger things to come next week. They would be Montreal (adding Mathieu Schneider from Atlanta), Ottawa (trading Dean McAmmond to the New York Islanders for Mike Comrie and Chris Campoli), and earlier today Pittsburgh traded Ryan Whitney to Anaheim for Chris Kunitz.

These trades have all been officially completed. Now here's a few guys that might or might not join them along the trade route:

Nik Antropov---among many (Toronto)
Jay Bouwmeester (Florida)
Either Chris Pronger or Scott Niedermayer (Anaheim)
Marian Gaborik (Minnesota)
Olli Jokinen (Phoenix)
Keith Tkachuk (St. Louis)
Doug Weight (NY Islanders)
Erik Cole (Edmonton)
Dwayne Roloson (Edmonton)
Alex Kovalev (Montreal)
Jason Spezza (Ottawa)
Chris Neil (Ottawa)

And that's just for starters! For more details, keep it here!

Today's the big day fans! The Deadline will officially arrive at around 4 hours from now. In Canada, the various sports networks will be all over it. If you don't get TSN or Sportsnet, you can still follow their coverage via the following links:

http://www.tsn.ca/

http://www.sportsnet.ca/

I'll have my reaction to all of today's trades after they're all sorted out. For now, just enjoy!

Note: Canadian sports networks are not affiliated with AOL or HULU so you can watch these clips anywhere in the world. So again, enjoy!

After the dust has settled from Wed.'s busy Deadline Day where 22 trades were made involving a record 47 players, with full details offered on the links that I posted above, here's a little segment I like to call Trade Deadline Winners and Losers:


THE LOSERS

New York Rangers --- Glen Sather has completely lost it. Who else would think it was a good idea to have Nik Antropov, and Sean Avery on the same team at the same time, all playing under John Tortorella? This setup might work for now, but it may backfire badly during the playoffs, if the Rangers can make the playoffs. I'm saying they won't and that could mean that Tortorella might find himself back at TSN doing "The Quiz" before he knows it. That would make us fans the real winners.

Pittsburgh --- Last year, the Penguins took a gamble on Marian Hossa and it worked in the short term as they made it all the way to the Finals. This year, finding themselves without Hossa and without much depth, which was used up to make that trade, the "Flightless Waterfowl" have tried again in hopes of gaining the same results. This time, unless Crosby can play up to his usual high standards, it may not be enough. Bill Guerin is a good player who has had a long and productive career but he can also be a coach-killer, which is too bad because new coach Dan Bylsma has done a good job with the team so far and has them playing their best hockey, even without the best player on the planet suiting up.

THE WINNERS

Phoenix --- The Coyotes did what I felt the Leafs should have done. They not only gained a few draft picks---being the only NHL team to acquire a first rounder as well as a 2nd and a 4th---but also picked up some useful NHL players that can help them in the short term (Lombardi, Upshall) and long term (Dawes, Prucha, and others). Now why couldn't Brian Burke have tried that?

Boston --- Mark Recchi has become the model for D-day rental players, having been traded 3 times in the past 4 years and helping his new teams reach the finals each year. The Bruins have a good team without him. With him, they could go all the way!

Buffalo --- Domenic Moore gives the Sabres a player who could turn out to be another Mike Peca for them, and they didn't give up a lot for him at all. Once again, a big mistake by Burke, who should have kept Moore and traded Alexei Ponikarovsky instead.

So that's my take on the whole day. What do you think?

My team, the Vancouver Canucks, didn't make a move. But I guess their big move was signing Mats Sundin in December. The rest of the season should be interesting considering a couple of teams in Vancouver's division(Calgary and Edmonton) did make moves.