What Hockey Trade Rumours Teach About How Fans Think

Three years ago, I wrote about a possible John Klingberg trade from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Calgary Flames. It didn’t happen. Klingberg wasn’t traded to Calgary. Chris Tanev and Nikita Zadorov didn’t arrive in Toronto as part of some grand defensive makeover. The various combinations of players, prospects and draft picks that fans were discussing never became reality.

So why go back and look at that article now? Because I think there was something more useful in it than the trade rumour itself. At the time, as a fan, I was trying to figure out how hockey rumours worked. More importantly, I was trying to figure out how I worked as a hockey writer while surrounded by these rumours.

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How Does One Separate Information from Possibility?

For hockey fans, the distinction between information and possibility sounds obvious. It isn’t always. Someone suggests a trade. Another person picks up the idea. A third person adds a player or a draft pick. Somebody else explains why the deal makes sense for both teams. Before long, a possibility can begin to feel like something that is actually happening.

That Klingberg article was full of that process. There was a problem. Klingberg wasn’t playing particularly well. There was speculation about his future. Calgary needed help on defence. Toronto needed different kinds of defencemen. Suddenly, there was a potential trade.

Then came the fun part. Looking at who was on the Flames’ roster, what if Tanev came back? What about Zadorov? Could T.J. Brodie go the other way? What about Timothy Liljegren? Nick Robertson? A draft pick? The conversation grew.

Hockey Rumours Are Really Exercises in Thinking.

Looking back, I can see how easily a hockey writer — and as a hockey fan — can move from “Could this happen?” to “This makes sense, so perhaps it will happen.” Those are two very different things. That is probably what I was learning without quite realizing it.

A rumour doesn’t have to come true to be useful. It can force us to ask questions. What does a team actually need? What would it have to give up? Does the proposed trade solve the original problem, or does it simply create another one somewhere else? Those are good questions even when the trade never gets made.

That is something I recognize from teaching research design. The process matters. You begin with a question, make some assumptions, gather information and then discover that the answer may not be the one you expected. Being a hockey fan or writer isn’t research design, of course. But there is a similar lesson. You have to be willing to look at your own thinking.

Three Years Later, the Trade Doesn’t Matter as Much as the Lesson.

I don’t mind being wrong about the Klingberg trade. In fact, I rather like being able to go back and look at it. It reminds me that hockey writing isn’t supposed to be a contest to see who can sound most certain. It is supposed to be a way of thinking about the game. That’s probably why fans enjoy trade speculation so much.

Sometimes a trade prediction is right. Sometimes it isn’t. And sometimes the most useful thing an old hockey story can give you is the opportunity to see how you were thinking at the time — and how much you have learned since.

That may be the real value of looking back. By the way, Tanev eventually played for the Maple Leafs. So that part of the idea wasn’t wrong.

Related: NHL Trade Talk Recap: Avalanche, Flames & Jets Dismantling?